To illustrate that the industry learned nothing from Tom Paxton’s song, in 2008 Dave Carroll followed it up with “United Breaks Guitars”. Bing Futch wrote “Only a Northwest Song” when that airline broke his double mountain dulcimer, but he did get an apology.
The husband-and-wife musical team of Richard and Mimi (Baez) Farina both had Celtic-Latino ancestry: Dulicer playing Richard had am Irish mother and Cuban father, while his wife guitar-playing Mimi had a Scottish mother and Mexican father.
Other notable husband-and-wife musical teams include John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Sonny and Cher, Ike and Tina Turner, and (my favorite) Johnny and June Carter Cash.
John Lennon’s first wife was Cynthia Powell and his second wife was Yoko Ono. Note that the letters of their last names are one letter apart in the reversed alphabet–P to O. Same with Ringo Starr’s two wives, Maureen Cox and Barbara Bach–C to B.
George Harrison went them one better and went from Pattie Boyd to Olivia Arias–both names one letter from each other in the reverse alphabet—P to O and B to A.
(This factoid occurred to me during a sleepless night. “Insomnia will surely take the mind where minds don’t usually go.”)
All four of the Beatles had at least one child who has pursued a career as a musician:
Ringo’s son Zak Starkey is a drummer, who has played with his father’s All-Starr Band, as well as with The Who and Oasis, among other bands.
John’s elder son, Julian, is a singer and guitarist, who has released a number of solo albums since the 1980s (his first album, Valotte, featured two songs wich were top 10 hits in the U.S.). His younger son, Sean, is also a musician, and currently plays in the Claypool Lennon Delirium.
One of Paul’s children, James, is a guitarist, drummer, and singer. He has played on several of his father’s albums, and has released several solo albums.
George’s son, Dhani, is a guitarist and singer. Dhani assisted Jeff Lynne in finishing his father’s final album, Brainwashed. He has been a member of the band Thenewno2, has written the scores for several movies and television shows, and will be the opening act for Jeff Lynne’s ELO on their tour in the summer of 2019.
The 1980’s first number 1 single on the Billboard chart (in the USA) was “Please Don’t Go,” by KC and the Sunshine Band. The last #1 single of the 1980s was “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale, an English barrister and subsequently judge, was the last surviving English lawyer who had been appointed King’s Counsel (KC). He was appointed in 1951, before the death of King George VI and the accession of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.
He died in 2006 at the age of 95.
At one point, Simon had a benign tumour removed from his cheek. The surgery left him blind in one eye. He wore a black eye-patch, which was particularly appropriate when he sat in Admiralty cases, as President of the Probate, Admiralty and Divorce Division of the High Court (informally referred to as the “Wills, Wives and Wrecks” Division).
Ana de Mendoza, the Princess of Eboli, was a Spanish aristocrat. Portraits show her as a beautiful woman with a black eye-patch over her right eye; supposedly she was blinded around age 14 in a mock duel with a page. Olivia de Havilland portrayed her in That Lady (1955), with Paul Scofield making his film debut as Philip II of Spain. Scofield won the BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer for the role.
Paul Scofield is one of 24 people who have won the ‘Triple Crown of Acting’: An Oscar, a Tony Award, and an Emmy Award in the acting categories. The first was Helen Hayes in February of 1953 when she won an Emmy. Thomas Mitchell was the second, just seven weeks later, when he won the Tony. There have been 15 women and 9 men who have won all 3 awards.
Heh. Wills and Trusts are slangily referred to as “Stiffs and Gifts” in American legal parlance.
In play:
Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas and Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant did not get along too well as colleagues in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Nevertheless, Thomas is prominently shown in a mural along with Grant in the main chamber of Grant’s tomb (formally known as the General Grant National Memorial) in New York City, and is also honored with a large bust overlooking the sarcophagi of both the late President and his wife, Julia Dent Grant.
In the pilot episode of the ABC series Eight Is Enough, the eldest son, David, was played by Mark Hamill. Hamill had been signed to a five-year contract for the role, but got out of the contract in order to take the role of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars; the role of David was then recast, with Grant Goodeve taking on the part for the series.
Eight is Enough was set in Sacramento CA. The father, Tom Bradford (Dick Van Patten), was a newspaper columnist for the fictional Sacramento Register (however, Sacramento’s largest and real newspaper is the Sacramento Bee, founded in 1857). The home featured in the exterior shots was not in or near Sacramento. It was in Los Angeles (Studio City), on Chiquita St, near Lankershim Boulevard. It is actually marked on Google Maps — Google Maps.
The house has since been demolished and replaced.
Chiquita Brands International, leading distributor of bananas in the US, is the successor firm to United Fruit Company, best known for controlling the economies and politics of the “banana republics” Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala, and to lesser degrees elsewhere in the region.
Several origins of the word fruit being used to describe gay men are possible, and most stem from the linguistic concepts of insulting a man by comparing him to or calling him a woman. Comparing a gay man to fruit, soft and tender, effeminate, like a woman has possibly gained near universal use because both LGBT people and fruit are found nearly everywhere. In One of the Boys: Homosexuality in the Military During World War II author Paul Jackson writes "a number of words that originally referred to prostitutes came to be applied to effeminate or queer men - “queen, punk, gay, faggot, fairy, and fruit.”
For every five German soldiers who died in WWII, four of them died on the Eastern Front.
One original abbreviation of the National Socialist Party was Nasos. The word “Nazi” derives from a Bavarian word that means “simple minded” and was first used as a term of derision by journalist Konrad Heiden (1901-1966).
No German officer has ever been shown to command a Starfleet vessel in any TV or movie version of Star Trek.
In the Star Trek:TOS episode, Patterns of Force, the Enterprise tracks down a Federation observer on a planet dominated by a “Naziesque” regime, and Kirk dons a Nazi uniform.
The term “African-American” to refer to Americans of black African ancestry did not come into common use until the 1980s and 1990s, popularized by, among others, Jesse Jackson. However, the term was used at least as far back as the late 18th century, and similar terms like “Afro-American” and “Africo-American” have been used over the last few centuries. Earlier usages usually did not include the hyphen.
The ethnic group that has traditionally dominated the government and economy of Liberia, despite being a minority, is the Americo-Liberians, of African American, Afro-Caribbean and Liberated African descent. The term has been superseded locally by “Congo” or “Congau” people, recognizing that the Americo-Liberians mixed with former slaves from the Congo Basin, who were freed by British and Americans from slave ships after the prohibition of the African slave trade, and some former Caribbean slaves.