The Eagles’ (band) debut hit, Take It Easy, was co-written by Glenn Frey and Jackson Browne.
The Eagles had their origins as singer Linda Ronstadt’s backup band. Glen Frey and Don Henley were hired by Ronstadt in early 1971; later that year, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon were added to Ronstadt’s touring band.
While on tour with Ronstadt, Frey and Henley decided to form a band together. They then recruited Meisner and Leadon to join them, the former man based on Ronstadt’s recommendation.
Linda Ronstadt helped create the country-rock genre and was dubbed the “Queen of Country Rock”. She never married but she adopted two children, Mary Clementine and Carlos.
Such an amazing voice.
While never married, Linda Ronstadt had various well-known partners such as California Governor Jerry Brown, Jim Carrey, and George Lucas.
In 1987 Linda Ronstadt teamed up with Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton to form Trio. After completing the first album they spent over ten years before they released a follow-up album, Trio II. Both Linda and Dolly said they would never work together again, although they did regather themselves to make television and stage appearances.
(On a personal note: their harmonies are magical, and give me chills when I listen.)
All the more impressive because he wasn’t even born until 1854.
In play:
Dolly Parton appeared as a holographic version of herself in “Midnight Blue,” a 2022 episode of the sf dramedy The Orville.
“Midnight Blue” has been the title of a number of pop and rock songs. Melissa Manchester (1975) and Lou Gramm (1987) had top-ten hits in the U.S. with that title; other songs with the same title have been recorded by the Electric Light Orchestra, Enya, Alkaline Trio, and Louise Tucker.
Oops!
“Fire On High” is the opening instrumental track from the 1975 Electric Light Orchestra album Face the Music. The song opens with spoken words: “The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back! Turn back! Turn back! Turn back!”, backmasked to sound like summoning chants of darkness.
Jeff Lynne’s final concert tour with ELO was from Aug. 2024 to July 2025. It was named, all too aptly, “The Over and Out Tour.”
In radio comm procedures, “Over and Out” is widely used. I used this myself thousands of times during my service years. But it’s actually a contradicting term.
Over means I’m done talking, so now you can talk.
Out means I’m done talking, and this conversation (or this post) is done.
Roger that. Bullitt, OUT.
Not in play: I am, in fact, wearing an ELO “Over and Out” t-shirt at this very moment.
In play:
In the 1980 spoof comedy film Airplane!, the three members of the airliner’s cockpit crew had names which caused confusion during their pre-flight conversation with the tower:
- Captain Clarence (“clearance”) Oveur (“over”) (played by Peter Graves)
- First officer Roger (“roger”) Murdoch (played by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)
- Navigator Victor (“vector”) Basta (played by Frank Ashmore)
Per Wiki, “In 2012, [Kareem] Abdul-Jabbar was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was until recently the NBA’s all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points. But he was surpassed by LeBron James in February 2023. James is the NBA’s only player to score over 40,000 regular-season points. As of late 2025, James has over 42,000 points.
LeBron James was drafted directly out of high school in 2003 by the Cleveland Cavaliers. In December of his rookie season, James set an NBA record by scoring 37 points in a game against the Boston Celtics, the most points ever scored in an NBA game by an 18-year-old.
That record was broken two nights ago, when Cooper Flagg of the Dallas Mavericks, six days shy of his 19th birthday, scored 42 points in a game against the Utah Jazz. Alas, it wasn’t enough, as the Jazz defeated the Mavericks 140 to 133 in overtime.
The Ford Maverick was a compact automobile model, introduced by Ford for the 1970 model year as an inexpensive “import fighter,” to compete against newer compact cars from brands such as Datsun and Toyota. The Maverick also competed against similar American models, such as the Chevrolet Nova and Dodge Dart.
The original Maverick was discontinued after the 1977 model year. Ford revived the name for a completely different vehicle, a compact pickup truck, in 2022.
The original Apple II, designed by Steve Wozniak, first sold on June 10, 1977.
Not in play: My Dad bought a 1970 Maverick, used by the dealer as a ‘display’ car. I think there were about 15k miles on it when we got it. The dealer had installed an aftermarket AC unit in the car, making it the first car we owned with air conditioning.
That car absolutely sucked. It had little power, was uncomfortable to ride in, and the AC leaked air big time, so it was cold in the winter. I was a junior in high school when Dad bought it, and I refused to drive it on the few dates that I had.
Carry on.
… carrying on…
The 5¼ inch floppy drive for the Apple II was designed by Steve Wozniak and called Disk II.
Disk II was sometimes stylized as Disk ][. It replaced the Apple II’s slow cassette tape data storage.
The Apple logo, an apple with a bite taken out of it, is a plot point in Robert Harris’s 2019 novel The Second Sleep. Several centuries in the future, the logo is interpreted as a symbol of Adam, Eve and their eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.