Friday Blog

In a recent blog we focused on the top ten composers listed in Rolling Stone’s “Top 100 Songwriters”. They were in order: Bob Dylan, Paul  McCartney, John Lennon, Chuck Berry Smokey Robinson, Jagger and Richards, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Stevie Wonder. For the record, Bob Marley, Brian Wilson, and Bruce Springsteen finished just outside the top ten. Any Rolling Stone list can’t be taken too seriously but some of my readers who looked it up online took serious offense to many of the rankings. Here are some of my random observations on the list: #98 Otis Blackwell was a rather unsuccessful performer but his songs “Don’t Be Cruel”, “Return to Sender”, and “Great Balls of Fire” live on.   #88, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill wrote “On Broadway”, “We Gotta Get Out of the Place”, and “You’ve Lost That Lovin Feeling” # 87 Khris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar and All-American rugby player wrote “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night”. Sam Cooke should be much higher than #86. He went from pop hits “Cupid” and “Twisting the Night Away” to subtle social commentary- “Chain Gang”. Then, after hearing Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” he wrote about the Black experience in America: the masterful “A Change Is Gonna Come” I never knew that #75 Issaac Hayes wrote  “Soul Man” and “Hold On – I’m coming”.   Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan should be much higher than 71. #61 Jerome Felder/Mort Shuman wrote “Save the Last Dance for Me”, “A Teenager in Love” and “Can’t Get Used to Losing You”. Talk about eclectic: #46 Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff wrote “Expressway to Your Heart,  “Me and Mrs. Jones” and “For the Love of Money”. Bob Dylan said about #65 George Harrison “If George had had his own group…. he’d have been probably as big as anybody”. #44 Jimmy Webb wrote Sixties hits like “Up, Up and Away”, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, and “Wichita Lineman” but his most popular song remains the bizarre “MacArthur Park”. Even Webb commented  “I don’t think it’s a very good song,” # 43 Johnny Cash once said to # 33 Merle Haggard, “Hag, you’re the guy people think I am”. Merle’s 38 Number One country hits include “Okie From Muskogee”, “Mama Tried”, and “Here I Am (Come and Take Me)”. Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia, the writing team central to the Grateful Dead, deserve to be much higher than # 36. #30 Dolly Parton has written a mind-boggling 3,000 plus songs. She has composed more than 20 Number One country singles and still makes mega royalties from Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you”. Before his untimely death at age 22,  Buddy Holly composed many great songs including  “Words of Love” and “Not Fade Away”. The Who’s mercurial Pete Townsend tied Buddy for 29th place.  “You Really Got Me” and “”Sunny Afternoon,” just scratch the surface of Ray Davies’ greatness (#27) #26 James Brown was a masterful arranger and composer. He often created songs on the fly, scrawling lyrics on a paper bag (“Sex Machine”) or a cocktail napkin (“Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud”). # 20 Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote “Jailhouse Rock”, “Love Potion #9”, and “Kansa City”. #19 Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry composed “Then He Kissed Me”, “Leader of the Pack”, and later — Ike and Tina’s “River Deep – Mountain High.” I had never heard of Holland and Dozier but they earned their #15 placement with hits such as “Stop! In the Name of Love”, “Reach Out, I’ll Be There”, and “Heat Wave”. Outrageous Omissions How could the great Warren Zevon be omitted from the top 100? Well, at least “his hair was perfect”. Another omission was the duo of Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield who composed  “Money (That’s What I Want)”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”, and Elaine Benes’ favorite “War! What is it good for?”   “Absolutely nothing!”   Have a great weekend, If you enjoyed this blog you can find all sorts of music trivia in my book, Get Smarter-Be Amazed. Go to www.tedcurinstories.com to get direct links to Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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Recently, I was standing in my hotel lobby in The Dominican Republic when a staff member asked me where I lived. When I told him Boston, he reacted like most Dominican males do “I love The Red Sox, Big Papi, and Pedro Martinez”. I said that Pedro is my all-time favorite pitcher, but I also love Pedro’s role model, Juan Marichal. Immediately, four other dudes came over and we had a lively discussion about Marichal and the greatest pitching duel in history. Marichal was born in a small Dominican fishing village in 1937. Juan and his friends needed to improvise in order to play baseball. They wrapped thick cloth around stray golf balls to get them to baseball size. Tree branches served as bats and canvas tarps for gloves. Juan left high school to pitch for the United Fruit Company team. When he shut out a Dominican Air Force squad, Air Force officials ordered Marichal to join their team. Marichal was signed by The San Francisco Giants and opened his big-league career by tossing a one-hitter in 1960.  Going into the now-famous 1963 duel, he had a 12-3 record and had recently pitched a no-hitter. Opposing the 25-year-old Dominican was 42-year-old Milwaukee Braves legend, Warren Spahn. Born in 1921, Spahn was raised in Buffalo, NY.  His 363 career wins make him the sixth winningest pitcher in history. He would have been higher on the list, but he enlisted in the army during WWII.  Spahn served in the Battle of The Bulge, won a purple heart and earned a battlefield commission. Both pitchers faced future Hall of Fame hitters. Milwaukee had Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews while the Giants boasted Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Orlando Cepeda.  Two years earlier, Spahn had pitched a no-hitter against the fearsome Giants. Going into this game, Spahn’ record was 11-3 with five straight victories Both pitchers possessed excellent control, a confounding array of pitches, and a high leg kick that obscured batters’ sightlines July 2, 1963 The game was scoreless after nine innings. In innings 10-12, Marichal retired nine straight batters while Spahn yielded only a bunt hit. Marichal begged Giants manager Alvin Dark not to remove him saying,” He’s 42 and I’m 25 – you can’t take me out until that man is not pitching.” Marichal chewed gum furiously to help his concentration. Spahn also chewed gum and allegedly smoked unfiltered Camels between innings.   in the fourteenth, the Giants loaded the bases, but Spahn escaped. The 16th started around 12:20 A.M and Marichal only gave up a single. He then told Willie Mays that he couldn’t continue pitching. Willie said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to win this game for you.” True to his word, Willie homered and the Giants won 1-0. In the epic duel, Spahn threw 201 pitches and Marichal 227.  Spahn spent several hours in the clubhouse drinking beer while Marichal went home and collapsed into bed. The next day Spahn took Marichal aside in the visitors’ clubhouse. Spahn, the winningest pitcher of the ’50s passed on his wisdom to the winningest pitcher of the ’60s. The Dominican never forgot Spahn’s thoughtfulness. Marichal finished 1963 at 25-8, with a 2.41 ERA, His career record was 243-142 with  an eye-popping 2.89 ERA. Spahn became the oldest pitcher to win 20 games, finishing at 23-7, His career declined after 1963 and he retired after two losing seasons. Spahn managed several minor league teams and was the Cleveland Indian’s pitching coach. For many years he operated a ranch in Oklahoma. Warren died in 2003 at the age of 82. The 88-year-old Marichal owns a farm in the Dominican Republic. He previously served as the DR’s Minister of Sports and Physical Education. His charitable works are legendary. Then Versus Now The stamina displayed by the two icons is extraordinary. Today, franchises adhere to limited pitch counts to protect their pitchers. Rarely does a starter pitch nine innings. The average innings pitched by a starter continues to fall and now stands at only five innings per start. That sound you just heard is Ole Warren spinning in his grave. Have a great weekend

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April 5th is the 107th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Sobek, a professional tennis and handball player who invented racquetball in 1950. His new game incorporated aspects of paddleball, squash and handball. The popularity of Sobek’s game sport skyrocketed in the 1970s due to that decade’s fitness boom. Racquetball’s growth was aided by the existence of thousands of handball courts which could also serve as racquetball courts at YMCAs and Jewish Community Centers. As the game became popular, entrepreneurs started building racquetball clubs. By 1980, it seemed like everyone was playing the sport and the Olympic Committee recognized it as a “developing” Olympic sport. By the mid -1980s, investors realized that they could reap bigger profits by converting space reserved for two racquetball players into rooms that could facilitate aerobics classes or exercise equipment. Many players switched to other physical activities. This had a multiplier effect since racquetball enthusiasts started losing their partners.  Finding new participants had many obstacles including high membership costs and the fact that many people prefer outdoor sports. Another challenge was that many novices were intimidated by the speed of the game and potential for injury. The number of racquetball participants peaked at 12 million in the early eighties. Today there are supposedly 3.5 million players but if you find one, please let me know. New Phenomenon The newest craze is pickleball, a sport that is very appealing to former racquetball and tennis players.  Pickleball has less movement, a smaller court and is easier on aging bodies. The sport was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington as a backyard game for children. Joel Pritchard and a couple of his golfing buddies created the game utilizing spare equipment from several sports: a badminton court, paddleball paddles, a net the height of a tennis net, and a wiffleball.  Pritchard’s wife, Joan, explains that “The name of the game became Pickle Ball after I said it reminded me of the pickle boat in crew where oarsmen were chosen from the leftovers of other boats.” Pickleball has been named the fastest-growing sport in the United States for four consecutive years. There are approximately 20 million participants in the U.S, an almost 50% increase from 2023. The 25-34 age group has the most players (4.6M) while seniors over 65 were the second largest bracket (3.8M). Major League Pickleball (MLP) and the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) generate significant revenue from various television networks including Pickleball TV. Professional players with the MLP and PPA tours collectively earn in excess of $30 Million per season, more than the WNBA and the Premiere Lacrosse League. Contrast those numbers with the ill-fated, once extremely popular racquetball. Unlike pickleball which is played in bright sunshine, television networks found that racquetball didn’t translate to the screen because of the dark, confined space in which it was played. And as if racquetball doesn’t have enough problems, Kevin Klipstein, CEO of U.S. Squash has announced that his organization is going to “quickly and aggressively” cannibalize America’s racquetball courts in order to grow participation in squash. Using pickleball’s current threat to tennis as an example, Klipstein vowed to mount a similar takeover of an existing player base and court inventory. Klipstein stated, “Racquetball once did the same thing to handball” The Survivors Squash is as popular as ever due to organized programs at many high schools and colleges. There are approximately 20 million participants spread across 130 countries. An estimated 1.5 million players enjoy squash in the U.S. And what about the sport that was supposedly supplanted by racquetball? Surprisingly. handball’s popularity estimates are almost identical to those of Squash -an estimated 20 million participants worldwide, 1.5 million of whom live in the U.S. The good news is that if you want to stay physically fit and mentally alert there are plenty of sports from which to choose. So far, I have avoided the siren call of the pickleball court. However, I expect it will be around for a while because unlike racquetball it is outdoors (usually), inexpensive and relatively easy on aging bones. Now if I could only find an alternative to golf! Have a great weekend.   .

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Like many baby boomers, I always  looked upon Dwight D. Eisenhower as a boring, uninteresting  leader particularly when compared to his charismatic successor John F. Kennedy. However I recently decided to give ‘Ike” a more detailed look when I learned about his “D-Day Letter”. In 1944, General Eisenhower directed the successful D-Day invasion which led to the liberation of Western Europe from the Nazis. One month later, aides discovered a letter that Ike had written which was to have been released if the invasion failed. The key line was “The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”  Imagine a leader with that type of humility and character. So, who was this man? Born in 1890 in Denison, Texas, and raised in Abilene, Kansas, Eisenhower was the third of seven sons born to parents of German and Swiss descent. His deeply religious and stern parents lived by the motto “Sink or swim – survive or perish”. His humble upbringing would later make it easy for the future General to easily relate to the soldiers he commanded. Although his parents were pacifists, Dwight developed an interest in military history and managed to get accepted to West Point. During World War I, the newly minted West Point graduate was tasked with training troops stateside. He climbed the ladder to General and was eventually appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force by Army Chief of Staff Geoge Marshall who valued Ike’s leadership and organizational skills. Ike supervised the successful Noth Africa campaign of 1942-1943.  The success of the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, resulted from his ability to unite and coordinate the efforts of numerous allied nations. Ten months after D-Day, Eisenhower led a delegation of generals on a tour  of the Ohrdruf concentration camp. Eisenhower entered a shed that housed 30 emaciated corpses, even though the sight and odor was so horrific that other officers including George Patton were unable to enter the room. A horrified Eisenhower vowed that the crimes of the holocaust be made public so they could not be denied or forgotten. He ordered that the gruesome sights be photographed, and he invited American media and politicians to visit the camp and witness the heinous crimes. After the war, Eisenhower became President of Columbia University.  He was not embraced by the faculty, but janitors and other workers loved him especially after he told them to just call him “Ike”. Eisenhower left Columbia in 1951 when President Truman named him Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which had recently been launched because of  the growing tensions of the Cold War. Mr. President In 1952 Ike succeeded Truman as President and continued to oversee American interests in the Cold War. Although his presidency is often considered unremarkable Ike quietly accomplished some great things: Balanced the federal budget in 1956, 1957, and 1960 despite increasing military expenditures. Inspired by his experiences driving the German Autobahn during WWII, Ike led the construction of The Interstate Highway System. It was one of the largest infrastructure projects in American history and transformed the way Americans travel and do business. Demonstrated his commitment to Civil Rights and the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision by deploying federal troops to ensure the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Established NASA in 1958 in response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik In his farewell address on January 17, 1961, Eisenhower warned about the influence of defense contractors saying, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence … by the military industrial complex”.  His warning still resonates today. No Pretense I am currently enjoying “How Ike Led” written by his granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower. In addition to detailing his accomplishments she summarizes his leadership as: “No pose, no pretense “ but simply “realistic, practical and disciplined”. To paraphrase Paul Simon: ‘Where have you gone Dwight D. Eisenhower? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you” Have a great weekend.

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Today marks the 257th anniversary of the birth of French mathematician Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier.  He is best remembered for his 1822 publication “Théorie analytique de la chaleur” in which he argued that the flow of heat between two adjacent molecules is proportional to the extremely small difference of their temperatures. I have absolutely no idea what that means but apparently mathematicians love Fournier’s stuff. Accordingly, scholars have honored him with appellations including The Fourier Series, Fourier Analysis, and Fourier’s Law of Conduction. So, in honor of the inimitable Frenchman, let’s have some fun with numbers: Prime numbers are numbers that are divisible only by themselves. And, if you add up the squares of the first seven prime numbers, you get 666. Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is an irrational number with an infinite number of digits. The volume of a cylinder is Pi times the radius squared, times height, Therefore a pizza with radius “Z” and height “A” would have the volume of… PI * z * z * a. There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ways to scramble a Rubik’s Cube. There are 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856, 403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000 ways to arrange a deck of cards. Therefore, if you shuffle a pack of cards properly, chances are that exact order has never been seen before in the entire history of the universe. There are zero zeros in Roman numerals. The Latin word “nulla” was used to represent the concept of zero. The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey typing randomly on a typewriter will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. This theorem has been used to illustrate the concept of infinity and the power of chance. When asked to name their favorite number from one to one hundred, 9.7 percent of respondents picked the number 7. Seven is a significant number across religions and cultures. There are seven colors in the rainbow, seven days in a week, seven notes on a musical scale, seven seas, and seven continents. The most popular two-digit number among the respondents was surprisingly the number 13 (selected by 5 percent of respondents). Some of the reasons 13 is considered superstitious include the 13 attendees at the last supper, a witches’ coven generally had 13 members and a traditional gallows had 13 steps,. The term, “googol “represents the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes. A googolplex is the number 1 followed by a googol zeroes. It is theorized that if you tried to write that huge number out and printed  it in a series of volumes, the books would weigh more than the entire planet. I sincerely hope I never experience the temperature of Minus 40 degrees. However  “40 Below” has the distinction of being the only temperature that is the same in both Fahrenheit and Celsius    The Birthday Problem How many people do you think would need to be in a room in order for there to be a 50% chance that two people share the same birthday? The answer is a surprisingly low 23 people. You can find numerous lengthy explanations online. This birthday problem is used to illustrate the power of probability and the importance of considering all possible outcomes. Today’s Math Joke An Indian chief decided it was time he created children and accordingly took three wives. He made one wife a teepee made of deerskin and one a teepee made of bearskin. For the wife he liked the best he went all out and imported a teepee made of hippopotamus hide. When he returned from the long autumn hunt he visited the first two wives and was very pleased that both were expecting babies. He was even more happy when the wife in the hippopotamus teepee told him she was expecting twins. However he was puzzled that his favorite wife was expecting twins while the other two were each having only one child. He went to the medicine man for his opinion and the wise man said, ‘It is old tribal saying – The sum of the squaw of the hippopotamus equals the sum of the squaws of the two adjacent hides.”   Have a great weekend and Happy Spring.

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Great Movie Lines The film classic “Casablanca” produced an amazing number of iconic quotes including “I am shocked, shocked!” and “Round up the usual suspects”. Most lists of memorable movie lines include “Here’s looking at your kid” at the very top. The origin of the line was from the Casablanca cast’s penchant for playing poker during filming breaks. Humphrey Bogart taught Ingrid Bergman how to play and used the phrase to explain a poker hand where the King, Queen, and Jack all look at you. Bogart went on to improvise the line in the movie.  So, let’s look at the background of some other memorable movie lines. Clark Gable was allowed to utter the word “damn” in Gone with the Wind” because one month before filming, an amendment was made to the 1930 Motion Picture Production Code that allowed the use of “hell” or “damn” if the word’s usage was deemed “ essential and required for portrayal, in proper historical context.” Marlon Brando was depressed throughout the filming of “On the Waterfront”. Brando thought his performance was embarrassing and he objected to much of the movie’s dialogue. He was so critical of the script for his classic back seat scene with Rod Steiger that director Elia Kazan stood back and allowed the two great actors to direct themselves. And thus, “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” “Taxi Driver” screenwriter Paul Schrader claimed that there was no specific dialogue for the scene where Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) talks to himself in the mirror. De Niro used a routine that he heard at a New York comedy club and voila “You talking to me?” The “Mad as Hell” speech delivered by Peter Finch in “Network” was filmed in just one and a half takes. Finch was too  exhausted to do any more. Soon after, Finch appeared on The Johnny Carson show to promote “Network”. The next day, Finch suffered a fatal heart attack but was eventually awarded the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.   Roy Scheider’s most famous line from “Jaws”  was an inside joke. The movie’s producers were extremely cheap and ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat,’ became a catchphrase for anytime anything went wrong such as filming being compromised by turbulent waters or lunch being late. Because of his thick Austrian accent, the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) had difficulty saying the word “I’ll”. He asked director James Cameron to change ‘I’ll be back” to “I will be back.” Cameron refused and Schwarzenegger required multiple takes to master the line which became Arnold’s catchphrase for all Terminator sequels. In “The Sixth Sense”, Haley Joel Osment tells Bruce Willis “I see dead people”.  It was meant as a hidden clue to the eventual revelation of the film. The camera focuses on Willis as he listens to the little boy’s confession which was meant to signify that Willis’ character was dead. The producers worried that the line gave away too much too soon. However, the clue was surely missed by me and everyone else I know that needed to immediately rewind the DVD and watch the movie a second time.   Hit and Miss Director Stanley Kubrick tried to remove  Jack Nicholson’s classic improvised ‘Here’s Johnny” line from “The Shining”.  Kubrick resided in England and didn’t understand that Nicholson was mimicking Ed McMahon’s famous introduction of Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show”.   “The Wizard of Oz” gave us numerous iconic lines such as “We’re not in Kansas anymore”. Interestingly, the producers tried to remove ‘Over the Rainbow’” from the film because they thought that it was too long and depressing for young audiences. It’s difficult to imagine the movie without Judy Garland’s signature song especially since her vocal abilities were the reason she was chosen for the lead role instead of Shirley Temple. Finally, you probably know this, but the words “Play it again Sam” were never spoken in “Casablanca”. Frankly, I don’t give a damn. Have a great weekend. I’ll be back !

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