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The Official DP Interesting Fact Thread

The story behind the song. Gracie Slick, barefoot and high, straggly haired, wearing well worn bell bottom jeans and a peasant shirt, not exactly what anyone would call clean, wandered into a Mercedes dealership. After she sat behind the wheel of one of the cars on display in the showroom, a stuffed shirt salesman escorted her out of the showroom, with some rude verbiage. About 90 minutes later Gracie returned, dumped a pillow case loaded with cash on a desk, pointed at a yellow Mercedes 250SL, said "I'll take that one, from any salesman except him" pointing at the salesman who treated her so poorly. Janis Joplin, hanging out with Kris Kristofferson, drinking buddies enjoying Southern Comfort being passed back and forth between them, heard the story related by Neil Cosby, a popular roadie, and after a laughing fit, proceeded together to write:

 
bubbabgone said:
Good one.
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He was a big star on his own, apart from the BGs. First male solo artist to have three consecutive number one singles. Freddie Mercury worked with him on a song and said he was amazed at his voice. Oh well.
 
Lutherf said:
White Rabbit was part of our drug education curriculum in grade school. They played the song, told us it was about drugs and then we went off to meditate. That was a few years before Nancy Reagan got involved :lamo
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"Just say 'blow' " Smiling Cheshire cat with half-closed red eyes was the logo on a local dispensary around here some years ago.
 
Josie said:
I think they didn't take him when he was out and about on his own was because they wanted the show. They told the media they were raiding the compound beforehand because they wanted it to be a spectacle. And it was.
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I agree. I left it for you to complete. My work hrs allowed me to come home and watch the disaster unfold on the news. They knew there were likely explosives, booby traps, etc. They knew that. Then they bulldozed the damn place. I watched it. Absolutely crazy. Watching death/insanity played out before my very eyes.
 
bluesmoke said:
I agree. I left it for you to complete. My work hrs allowed me to come home and watch the disaster unfold on the news. They knew there were likely explosives, booby traps, etc. They knew that. Then they bulldozed the damn place. I watched it. Absolutely crazy. Watching death/insanity played out before my very eyes.
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I was a teenager then, but I do remember seeing it on the news. I didn't really understand it then, but I've recently listened to the entire story and it was just nuts.
 
bluesmoke said:
He was a big star on his own, apart from the BGs. First male solo artist to have three consecutive number one singles. Freddie Mercury worked with him on a song and said he was amazed at his voice. Oh well.
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Yeah he was pretty big. Drugs got him, no?
 
Behind the history

A little history of the man responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor:

Takeo Yoshikawa- The Japanese Imperial spy who, on his own for the JINIO, scoped out Pearl Harbor for months, and fed his bosses info on the routines of the base that allowed them to plot the actual attack.

This guy was outed by another Japanese spy from the war in a 1950s Japan newspaper article. If Takeo was expecting a ticker-tape parade and such, he was in for a whopper of a surprise. He was denied a pension from the government for his war service and he was essentially blackballed by his own countrymen because of the war's cost with the United States brought them. He said in an interview that people even blamed him for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 
I'm just giving "ballpark" figures on the numbers, but an absolutely great short-stop, Mark Belanger of the Baltimore Orioles, was a many times Golden Glove winner, playing from the mid-60s to the early 80s. Hardly ever made an error. When he won, I think his first GG award, he proudly told his dad, saying something like "Hey, Dad, I went over 300 innings without making an error!". His dad replied "I landed on an aircraft carrier 350 times. What do you think would have happened if I made an error?". Perfect "dad".
 
Roadvirus said:
Behind the history

A little history of the man responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor:

Takeo Yoshikawa- The Japanese Imperial spy who, on his own for the JINIO, scoped out Pearl Harbor for months, and fed his bosses info on the routines of the base that allowed them to plot the actual attack.

This guy was outed by another Japanese spy from the war in a 1950s Japan newspaper article. If Takeo was expecting a ticker-tape parade and such, he was in for a whopper of a surprise. He was denied a pension from the government for his war service and he was essentially blackballed by his own countrymen because of the war's cost with the United States brought them. He said in an interview that people even blamed him for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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"Full Frontal" knock-knock joke from Samantha Bee (she's great), knocking on Harry Truman's door, Samantha: "Knock-knock" Truman: "Who's there." Samantha "Not Nagasaki".
 
Question: In the late 18th century, what was the "epicenter of early modern globalization?"

Answer: NO, it was not Western Europe.

According to my source, it was:

a. A small island owned by France.
b. It "produced 40 percent of the sugar and half the coffee consumed in the world."
c. It also produced "enormous amounts of cotton, chocolate, and textile dyes."
d. "Its ports teemed with ships from Europe, North America, South America, and other points in the Caribbean."
e. "Some five hundred [ships] a year sailed to the United States alone, returning laden with American food exports."
f. Most of the work on the island was done by slaves.












You're right. The answer is Haiti.



Source: "The Contagious Revolution" by David A. Bell in the New York Review of Books, print edition of December 19, 2019, pages 44-50.


P.S. He quotes one author's words: "For black people in the nineteenth century, [Haiti] was the closest thing to a free country that existed anywhere in the New World."
 
bubbabgone said:
Yeah he was pretty big. Drugs got him, no?
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I don't know if it was a drug overdose that was the direct cause of his death, but, yeah, he was pretty much absent from life his last few yrs., on drugs.
 
I’ve had the happenstance of watching two particularly amazing performance of individual art, IMO, on film.

One was by Denny Dent. I first saw the film as part of a collage of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Dent was so inspired by that, during one particular artist' performance, he went to a brick wall with his paints and gave his vision of what he saw on that wall. Didn’t know who Dent he was or what was going on. It just came up suddenly in the collage.

denny dent - Bing video

I have spoken with but few others who saw this that but with very few throws of paint by Dent they saw Hendrix. I hope you did, too. Wouldn’t doubt it.

The other I came upon just flipping channels, before online. It was a black and white, my best/wild guess was from the 40’s, he had gray hair. In front of what looked like a classroom of students, silent film but for the speaker describing Picasso. Picasso was wearing his typical French beret, in front of a fairly large pad of paper with what I guessed was a charcoal in his hand. He goes to the pad and swiftly draws a perfect circle. Like 4 ft wide. Turns back to the class and goes on with whatever. Perfect circle. Wish you could see it.
 
beefheart said:
Keith Moon and Mama Cass died in the same bedroom a few years apart. Harry Nilsson's apartment in London.
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February 12, 2000, three famous celebrities died. Tom Landry, coach of the Cowboys, Charles Shultz, creator of Peanuts, and Oliver, singer of "Good Morning Starshine".
 
Fun Fact. Leonardo DaVinci invented scissors.
 
It's often been said that Bob Dylan is an example of a mediocre singer who is one of the most accomplished talents of our time. There are many great songs in the 60s and 70s, including later, but not as many, made famous by other singers which had Bob Dylan as the songwriter. Dylan was a Jewish kid from Duluth, Minnesota who idolized the folk-music singer Woody Guthrie so much that at age 19, Dylan traveled to visit the extremely sick Guthrie who had Huntington's Disease. They became good friends and it's obvious from Dylan's earlier works how much Guthrie influenced him. Dylan's talent as a writer and a poet was inspired by Guthrie, but the talent was all Dylan's own. Despite a mediocre singing voice, his songs had resonance and not only invited hundreds of covers, but requests for his songwriting talents.

Even though Dylan sang several of his own songs, they were picked up by other artists and turned into classics. One of my favorites is Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower"...a Dylan song which he recorded and released 6 months before the Hendrix version. All Along the Watchtower - Wikipedia

"Forever Young" is usually known by other singers than Dylan even though it's his song and he recorded it first. I remember the Joan Baez version best, but it's been covered by a lot of people/bands. Forever Young (Bob Dylan song) - Wikipedia

"Make You Feel My Love" is a 1997 song covered in 1998 by Garth Brooks (and reached #1 on the CW charts) and also by Adele in 2008.

Songfacts - Songs written by Bob Dylan
 
Today I learned that the term Peeping Tom most likely came from a legend within a legend. When Lady Godiva rode a horse through the streets naked (legend) the townspeople promised to close their windows so she wouldn’t be seen. All except for one man (Tom, a generic name for any ole man) who decided to peek.
 
John Tyler, the US President (born 1790) who was elected in 1840 (on the Wm. Henry Harrison ticket) has two living grandsons who to this day give tours of the Tyler estate.

Access Denied

Also, there is a woman who is the daughter of a Civil War veteran who, to this day, still receives a $74/mo pension from the US government.

Veterans' Benefits Live On Long After Bullets Stop - WSJ
 
RAMOSS said:
Fun Fact. Leonardo DaVinci invented scissors.
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Ben Franklin invented everything else. Even swim fins (he was an avid swimmer).
 
Rising Sun said:
It's often been said that Bob Dylan is an example of a mediocre singer who is one of the most accomplished talents of our time. There are many great songs in the 60s and 70s, including later, but not as many, made famous by other singers which had Bob Dylan as the songwriter. Dylan was a Jewish kid from Duluth, Minnesota who idolized the folk-music singer Woody Guthrie so much that at age 19, Dylan traveled to visit the extremely sick Guthrie who had Huntington's Disease. They became good friends and it's obvious from Dylan's earlier works how much Guthrie influenced him. Dylan's talent as a writer and a poet was inspired by Guthrie, but the talent was all Dylan's own. Despite a mediocre singing voice, his songs had resonance and not only invited hundreds of covers, but requests for his songwriting talents.

Even though Dylan sang several of his own songs, they were picked up by other artists and turned into classics. One of my favorites is Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower"...a Dylan song which he recorded and released 6 months before the Hendrix version. All Along the Watchtower - Wikipedia

"Forever Young" is usually known by other singers than Dylan even though it's his song and he recorded it first. I remember the Joan Baez version best, but it's been covered by a lot of people/bands. Forever Young (Bob Dylan song) - Wikipedia

"Make You Feel My Love" is a 1997 song covered in 1998 by Garth Brooks (and reached #1 on the CW charts) and also by Adele in 2008.

Songfacts - Songs written by Bob Dylan
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Some critics were positive on Dylan's voice. One even said, I read many yrs ago, thought Dylan had the best voice for folk-rock. I'm thinking it was Robert Hilburn, but I'm not sure. The critic also said "Crossroads", by Robert Johnston, was the best rock song ever. I wouldn't disagree with Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", even though he's written better. Funny that.
 
SNL alumnus/Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd has syndactyly (webbed toes).
 
Katy Perry's real name is Kate Hudson. She changed it for obvious reasons.
 
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Q-Tips were originally called Baby Gays.

Oscar the Grouch was orange for the first season of Sesame Street.
 
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