Bing Crosby and David Bowie sang “Little Drummer Boy” for a Christmas special. Crosby would die 5 weeks after the recording.
For decades, people and media outlets have repeated the anecdote about John Lennon being asked whether he considered Ringo Starr to be the best drummer in the world.
The line often attributed to Lennon - “Ringo isn’t the best drummer in the world. He isn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles” - was actually uttered by British comedian Jasper Carrott in 1983, three years after John was killed.
Ringo Starr is listed at #14 of the Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Drummers of All Timr. And in that same list, Tommy Ramone at #56, is wearing a USMC t-shirt.
Tommy Ramone is at #70 in the list, not 56. (And, I am somewhat surprised that Ringo is that high on the list. I didn’t expect to find him among the top 100 at all…)
John Peters Ringo was an outlaw in Texas and Arizona whose brief career intersected with several other famous gunslingers. He was affiliated with the Clanton brothers, related through his aunt’s marriage to the Younger brothers, once jailed with John Wesley Hardin, almost had a gun duel with Doc Holliday, and was accused of participating in the murder of Morgan Earp. He died in 1882 from a gunshot which Wyatt Earl claimed to have fired.
John Ringo is an American science fiction and military fiction author. He has had several New York Times best sellers. His books range from straightforward science fiction to a mix of military and political thrillers. As of 2015, John Ringo had written or co-written 46 novels.
The author with the pseudonym John le Carré is considered a master of the spy novel but some of his work doesn’t really fit that genre. He also wrote mystery novels and psychological political thrillers. In January 2003 he indicated lack of support for G.W. Bush’s response to 9/11.
It is widely held that the author of “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” under the pseudonym B. Traven, was actually either Ret Marut or Otto Feige. Marut was a Germana anarchist actor, and Feige was a German who passed through the USA on his way to Mexico. Both may have been she same person. Besides his classic, Traven published a dozen other books, which are fascinating insider-view stories of the underbelly of humanity, but with a lack of professional editing. (I’ve read several of them.)
The north-south running Sierra Nevada 250-mile long mountain range lies between the large California Central Valley depression on the west, and the Basin and Range Province on the east. The Sierra Nevadas are home to the largest trees in the world, the sequoias, and its peaks rise to between 11,000 and 14,000 feet above sea level. Mount Whitney, at 14,494’, is the highest in the USA’s lower 48 states. US highway 395 runs north-south along the eastern side of the Sierras and has some beautiful, rugged scenery during the days, and crysstal-clear, often cloudless star-packed** skies during the nights.
The Sierra Nevada Mountains near Truckee California is where the Donner Party became trapped and resorted to cannibalism in 1846-47. Donner Lake and the Donner Pass were named after the tragedy.
The route taken by the Donner party was called The Hastings Cutoff, which was promoted by Lansford Hastings in his book The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, even though he had never personally traveled the route until 1846 and that was without being encumbered by wagons. James Reed, the leader of the party, chose the cutoff even though he was warned by those familiar with the route to avoid it at all costs.
The unsuccessful royal claimant Harold’s body was identified on the battlefield at Hastings by his paramour (some sources call her his wife) Edith Swan-Neck (also known as Edith the Fair), who recognized him by scars on his chest even though his face had been mutilated. She arranged for his burial by local monks against the wishes of William the Bastard, who had refused a ransom from Harold’s mother of her son’s body’s weight in gold.
William the Bastard was later known to history as William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England, after invading England in 1066.
Miami Herald and ESPN reporter Dan Le Batard famously gave his National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot in 2014 to Deadspin, because of his criticism over the BBWAA’s voting process of selecting baseball players, especially concerning players involved in performance-enhancing drug scandals. Le Batard has spoken out against the “moralizing” of the voting. Le Batard was also forever stripped of his Hall of Fame voting privileges.
Fat Bastard is a fictional character in the second and third films of the Austin Powers series. A morbidly obese henchman hailing from Scotland, Fat Bastard serves Dr. Evil in his quest to destroy Austin Powers. The character is portrayed by Mike Myers.
ETA: If Elvis can take Bastard and play Batard, I claim the right to take Batard and go back to Bastard.
Richard III argued that his brother’s marriage was void and therefore Edward IV’s sons, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, were bastards, leaving Richard as the rightful monarch.
Fat Bastard Scotch Ale is brewed by Black Bridge Brewery of Kingman, AZ.
Files, as working tools, are described according to how much material they remove, a function of how fine its teeth are. They are defined as (from roughest to smoothest): rough, middle***, bastard,*** second cut, smooth, and dead smooth. A single-cut file has one set of parallel teeth while a cross-cut or double-cut file has a second set of cuts forming diamond shaped cutting surfaces.
An extremely coarse grade of file is usually called a rasp, which is used for shaping wood, alabaster and other materials such as horse hooves.
The USA produces less than 10% of the world’s raspberries, after Russia, Poland and Serbia.
the word Raspberry appears to be derived from *raspise, *“a sweet rose-colored wine” of the 15th century.