**Update, 1/20…
Folks, this is the last time I get on a ship without first figuring
out the computer setup. It”s a mess. Bottomline, I can”t seem
to post my Word Docs onto the template that I need to in order
to then transfer to the Net.
Give me a day to see if there is a solution.
College Basketball / Player of the Year Quiz: Since 1961, the
AP has selected a Player of the Year. For 2002, it was Duke’s
Jason Williams. 1) What two Indiana players have won it? 2)
What player won it three years in a row? 3) Who is the only
player from Michigan to capture it? 4) Who are the only three
winners from UCLA? 5) Who was the last Big East player to
win it? Answers below.
Maurice Gibb
It shouldn’t really come as too much of a surprise that the death
of the Bee Gees’ Maurice Gibb is creating quite a stir.
Unfortunately, thousands die every year from problems that arise
in the operating room, but in this instance Maurice’s brothers,
Robin and Barry, are accusing the Miami hospital where Maurice
died of negligence. The claim is that doctors continued an
operation for an intestinal blockage even after he had suffered a
heart attack. Maurice’s intestines were twisted and he was in the
process of having 80% of his stomach removed when he
encountered other difficulties. To be continued.
But who was Maurice Gibb…and why should you care? Well,
the latter is actually a personal decision, I guess, but regardless of
what you think of the Bee Gees’ music, they are in the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame and you won’t believe how many Top Twenty
hits they had, as you’ll see below.
Maurice was born in 1949 on Britain’s Isle of Man. Fraternal
twin, Robin, older brother Barry, and later kid brother Andy
(who had a solo career outside the others) were all influenced by
their father, Hugh, who was a drummer and bandleader, as well
as their mother, who sang some. The family moved to Australia
in 1958, where the 3 older brothers began to receive some gigs.
By 1960, promoter Bill Good and his DJ friend Bill Gates got
them some concert dates and the group became known as the
“B.G.’s”. Contrary to popular belief, and all the obituaries you
just read, they were NOT named for the ‘Brothers Gibb,’ rather
B.G.’s stood for the initials of Bill Good and Bill Gates. It was
in 1962 that the boys began billing themselves as the “Bee
Gees,” but, again, not for the assumed reason. So there, now win
some beer at the local tavern.
Where were we? Oh yeah, the Gibb family moved back to
England in 1967 and the boys career, which had been taking off
in Australia, really soared. They were teamed in England with
producer Robert Stigwood, a partner of the Beatles’ Brian
Epstein, and it was the start of a run that would see the Bee Gees
sell about 120 million albums worldwide.
Their career can really be viewed in two stages, 1967-71 and
1975-79.
From ‘67-’71 they had the following Top 20 Billboard hits (with
some doing better on the UK charts).
#14 – New York Mining Disaster (Have You Seen My Wife, Mr.
Jones)
#17 – To Love Somebody
#16 – Holiday
#11 – (The Lights Went Out In) Massachusetts
#15 – Words
#8 – I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You
#6 – I Started A Joke
#3 – Lonely Days
#1 – How Can You Mend A Broken Heart
#16 – My World
#16 – Run To Me
Now even I thought some of these were pretty good, though here
is something telling. I just realized that I probably have every
significant greatest hits collection from the 60s, except the Bee
Gees, so that tells you where I really stand.
The early reviews of the group in 1967 were great, with some
comparing the brothers to the Beatles. The three of them,
though, let the success get to their heads, and they blew huge
chunks of their initial fortunes (not that there is anything wrong
with this). For his part, Maurice, the most jovial of the lot, as
well as the most serious musician, lived next door to Ringo Starr
and began accumulating classic cars. At one point in those days
he had six Rolls-Royces and eight Aston Martins, while any
money that was left over was spent on drinking binges. John
Lennon had actually given Maurice his first taste of alcohol, a
scotch and coke, at age 16.
In 1969, Maurice married pop singer Lulu (I always thought she
was hot), but Maurice was tipping way too many to suit her and
the couple divorced in 1973. Separately, the brothers were also
constantly bickering, even throughout the good periods, and like
all rock groups they hit a slump. Only this time, unlike most of
their peers, they were able to come back and launch a new string
of smash hits, thanks to the work of Arif Mardin, a Miami-based
(this being the new home of the Bee Gees) producer who had had
some success with Aretha Franklin. Mardin taught them how to
incorporate the dance beat into their music, just as the disco
craze was taking off, and the rest is history.
From 1975-79, the Bee Gees had the following Top 20s.
#1 – Jive Talkin’*
#7 – Nights On Broadway
#12 – Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)
#1 – You Should Be Dancing*
#3 – Love So Right
#12 – Boogie Child
#1 – How Deep Is Your Love*
#1 – Stayin’ Alive*
#1 – Night Fever*
#1 – Too Much Heaven
#1 – Tragedy
#1 – Love You Inside Out
That’s right, six #1’s in a row, with five of the above ending up
on the smash soundtrack “Saturday Night Fever” (marked with
an *), one in which the Bee Gees donated two other songs,
Yvonne Elliman’s “If I Can’t Have You” and Tavares’s “More
Than A Woman,” both of which are better than anything the Bee
Gees ever did, in my opinion.
“Saturday Night Fever” represented the peak of disco and sold an
astounding 40 million copies worldwide. While later surpassed
by Michael Jackson and the Eagles for best-selling album of all
time, it is still the best-selling soundtrack album.
By the end of 1979 disco was over, however, and the Bee Gees
split in 1981. Hell, they were all doing drugs and stuff so putting
them together in the studio might have been dangerous anyway.
And to digress a moment, I saw a pompous obituary in the Wall
Street Journal on Wednesday, saying that all the articles on
Maurice only focused on his binge drinking. Well, that’s what
he did, jerk. You can’t try and sugarcoat it. I do need to add that
kid brother Andy Gibb’s death in 1988, from drugs and alcohol,
had a terrible impact on Maurice in particular. “After that, I just
drank to numb my mind,” he told one reporter. But throughout
his whole career, with everyone in show business knowing of his
problem, it wasn’t until 1991 that he admitted himself into rehab.
Of course another problem that all three of the Gibb brothers had
was the fact they never felt their music was taken seriously, as it
shouldn’t have been! The London Times once commented,
“Popular though it was, their music never sounded grown-up.”
Maurice, for one, took this criticism way too hard. Geezuz,
boys, you just made $tens of millions, who gives a damn what
anyone thinks?! I’d be hanging out at South Beach all day (err,
night).
Well, that’s about all from here. While the Bee Gees had a few
relatively minor hits in the U.S. in the 80s (they eventually got
back together), they do share a distinction in the UK of being the
only performers to chart #1’s in four decades, from the 60s
through the 90s.
George Washington and the Winter of 1780
You know, sports fans, it’s easy to forget that four years after the
Declaration of Independence, our brave Patriots were not having
an easy go of it, especially militarily, and it didn’t help matters
any that the Winter of 1780 was absolutely brutal and one of the
worst ever documented.
General George Washington encamped once again in the
Morristown, NJ area, what is today known as Jockey Hollow
National Park, but by January 7 of that year, his 10,000 ill-fed,
poorly clothed troops were dealing with the 3rd monster storm in
two weeks. Drifts were 3-5 feet and many of the soldiers had no
shoes. Those troops that had come in from the surrounding area
in late December didn’t have time to build log cabins, so they
buried themselves in their tents.
Washington chose Jockey Hollow because of the protection
afforded him by the Watchung Mountains, from which he could
keep track of the British in New York, about 20 miles away. On
January 14, the general sent a force of 2,500 to hit the redcoats at
Staten Island, but the British were not surprised and the
Americans struggled back…only to have to deal with the next
bout of extreme weather. Air temps of 16 below on January 16
and more snow. In fact, by January 23rd, the New York / New
Jersey region had seen 17 significant snowfalls since November
1st. It was so cold…(how cold was it?)…that every harbor from
North Carolina to New England froze over.
Private Joseph Martin of the 1st Connecticut Brigade wrote the
following that winter:
“We absolutely, literally starved. I do solemnly declare that I did
not put a single morsel of victuals into my mouth for four days
and as many nights, except for a little black birch bark which I
gnawed off a stick of wood. I saw several of the men roast their
old shoes and eat them, and I was afterward informed by one of
the officer’s waiters that some of the officers killed and ate a
favorite little dog that belonged to one of them.” [Source: Tom
Hester / Star-Ledger] And here comes PETA!
So when your grandparents tell them about the harsh winters of
their youth, you just fire back at them, “Yeah, but did you know
about the winter of 1780!” I guarantee you, they’ll go
“Harumpf,” and walk out of the room in a huff.
By the way, it wasn’t until October 1781 and the Battle of
Yorktown that, militarily, the British were finally defeated. The
Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the Revolutionary War,
wasn’t signed until September 3, 1783.
[I have a confession to make, I forgot all these dates myself, but
I’m assuming I’m not alone in this regard.]
Stuff
–Back on 12/10 in this space I noted that high school basketball
phenom LeBron James drove a Navigator last year, despite the
fact his mother was on welfare. So it should be no surprise that
in the last week the fact that James is now driving a $50,000
Hummer H2 is receiving big play. This is an amateur, folks. A
freakin’ high school senior. It was a gift from outside. Oh sure,
his mother gave it to him as an 18th birthday present, but she
obtained a bank loan to finance the purchase and…oh, you get
the picture. Lots of scum running around LeBron these days.
As for the amateur status issue, the Washington Post weighed in
with the following in a recent editorial.
“Another question worth raising is what in the world amateur
status means in a situation where (a) Mr. James’s entire team is
outfitted by a solicitous sneaker company; (b) several of his
games have been nationally televised; (c) his team (St. Vincent-
St. Mary of Akron) has been playing mostly in college arenas to
accommodate the crowds he draws, while charging $15,000 to
appear in tournaments; and (d) Mr. James has absolutely no
interest in going to college anyway. There is something to be
concerned about here, but it’s a lot bigger than LeBron James’s
Hummer.”
–Looks like Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears are back
together. We wish them all the best, as we’re big fans of their
music………………………………………………just seeing if
you’re all awake.
–Congratulations to my good friend Paul P., who just returned
from his honeymoon on St. Lucia. More importantly (sorry,
Paul), he tells me the island produces an awesome beer, Piton,
the “mystic mountain beer.” Paul also tells me the two of them
(I”m referring to his wife, not the beer) got off the island
just in time…Bill Clinton was coming to town.
–Bad news, “Sopranos” fans. The final season is not starting
until next January, at the earliest. It was slated to begin in
September. This blows.
–Johnny Mac tells me that a man was killed by his fighting cock
in Thailand. [That doesn’t read too well, does it?] The cock,
outfitted with razor blades for its coming bout, cut the handler up
pretty bad and the man bled to death. There’s a moral here,
somewhere, but I’m stretching it with the censors as it is, so we
better wrap this up.
Top 3 week of 1/17/70: #1 “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My
Head” (B.J. Thomas) #2 “Venus” (The Shocking Blue) #3 “I
Want You Back” (The Jackson 5)
–The other day I mentioned that Polka king Jimmy Sturr had
received another slew of Grammy nominations. Well, lest you
think I was joking around, U.S. News and World Report had a
blurb on him in the 1/20 edition. Jimmy has won 12 Grammies
and has recorded an astounding 105 albums.
College Basketball / AP Player of the Year Quiz Answers: 1)
The two Players of the Year from Indiana were Scott May, 1976,
and Calbert Cheaney, 1993. 2) Ralph Sampson won it three
years in a row, 1981-83, while playing for Virginia. 3) Cazzie
Russell is the only player from Michigan to win the AP honor,
1966. 4) UCLA: Winners – Lew Alcindor, 1967 and 1969 (Elvin
Hayes won it in 1968); Bill Walton, twice, 1972-73; Marques
Johnson, 1977. 5) The last Big East player to win it was Walter
Berry / St. John’s, 1986.
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday. Seriously, if you don’t see anything by
8:00 AM ET that day, well, then I’ve had a computer problem.
Let’s just say we’re doing the next few from a different kind of
location. Stay tuned.
