Green Bay Packers Quiz: 1) Rushing yards, career? 2) Most
passing yards, season? 3) Most receptions, career? 4) Most TD,
career? Answers below.
Herman”s Hermits
Peter Noone (Herman) was born on November 5, 1947 in
Manchester, UK. As a little boy he sold programs at Manchester
United soccer matches and became a child actor in a daytime
television program. It was in the early 60s that Noone first
joined a Manchester band called the Cyclones. The group then
changed its name to the Heartbeats, with Noone as lead singer.
[At this time, however, he was going by the name Peter Novak. I
just have to add that I”m out in western Pennsylvania this week
(thus the short Bar Chat), visiting the many relatives on the
”Novak” side of my family, so it”s kind of cool for yours truly to
just find this out.]
Well, at this time it”s early ”64 and the boys in the band think
that Peter looks like Sherman, a character out of “The Bullwinkle
Show,” only they get the spelling wrong and it becomes
”Herman,” reorganizing shortly thereafter as Herman & His
Hermits, and later, Herman”s Hermits.
By late ”64, helped along by producer Mickie Most, Herman”s
Hermits has their first hit in the U.S., “Can”t You Hear My Heart
Beat,” which peaks at #2. [“I”m Into Something Good” hits #13
the same year.] Then in 1965, the band struck it big with 6 Top
Ten singles.
“Silhouettes” #5
“Mrs. Brown, You”ve Got A Lovely Daughter” #1
“I”m Henry VIII, I Am” #1
“Just A Little Bit Better” #7
“Wonderful World” #4
“A Must To Avoid” #8
They would add four other Top Tens before the end of 1967.
“Listen People” #3
“Dandy” #5.a Ray Davies of the Kinks tune
“Leaning On The Lamp Post” #9
“There”s A Kind Of Hush” #6
By early 1968, Herman”s Hermits was out of hits, however,
though they actually lasted longer than many of the other British
Invasion acts (and the band didn”t formally break up until the
early 70s). Peter Noone went on to pursue a solo career, which
basically flopped, and then he did some Broadway.
Herman”s Hermits was largely successful because of the
marketing of Peter Noone and his “little-boy-lost” look, which
appealed to mothers and fathers, as well as teenagers. [Many
thought he reminded them of John F. Kennedy.a bit of a
stretch.]
But you probably didn”t know that the musicians behind
Herman”s Hermits were really session artists, which is why I
didn”t list those who were on stage during concerts or television
appearances. And the real musicians behind the hits were none
other than Jimmy Page, Jim Sullivan and John Paul Jones. Of
course Jones and Page would later form Led Zeppelin. And now
you know.the rest of the story.
The Merry Pranksters
Hey, bad times for these dudes, as both Sandy Lehmann-Haupt
and Ken Kesey died in the past two weeks. Personally, I
couldn”t care less, but I was amazed at the extensive New York
Times obituary for Kesey when, frankly, he probably warranted a
paragraph. That”s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Anyway, Kesey was the author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo”s
Nest,” for which he does deserve just credit. Otherwise, he was a
waste. Now I know I”m being harsh here, but really, Kesey and
his self-proclaimed band of “Merry Pranksters” gained a ton of
publicity for riding around the country in 1964 in a bus called
”Further” (painted ”Furthur” on the bus itself). They rode from
California to New York and back, blasting music through a
sound system developed by Lehmann-Haupt and doing LSD.
Of course it was Kesey who organized his “Acid Tests” (LSD
was legal back then) and it was author Tom Wolfe who
immortalized this scene in his book about the psychedelic world
(“Wow, man.”) in “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” (1968).
Kesey and his fellow wastos were viewed as being the bridge
between the cool world of the Beatniks (I was only 6 years old in
”64, but I know I would have been a good Beatnik) and the self-
destructive realm of the hippie generation.
Lehman-Haupt is the one who described his experiences on the
bus to Tom Wolfe and we are supposed to take note (at least his
obituary makes a big deal of it) of the fact that he was also one of
only two Pranksters invited to take LSD with psychedelic drug
advocate, Timothy Leary…no relation to the former Mets pitcher
of the same name. Lehman-Haupt later admitted he got all
screwed up and lost years off his life. [He died at 59…Kesey at
66.]
Now to give Kesey his due, it was during a stint as a night
attendant on the psychiatric ward of a hospital that he got his
idea for “Cuckoo”s Nest.” Kesey imagined the characters while
he, himself, was high on drugs. Chief Broom became the
character through which he could describe the battle between the
two main characters, Randle Patrick McMurphy and Nurse
Ratched.
Tom Wolfe later noted that Kesey would “write like mad under
the drugs,” and then cut out what he viewed as “junk” after he
came down.
“Cuckoo”s Nest” was published in 1962, with the movie version
coming out in 1975. Despite capturing 5 Oscars, including Best
Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Actress
(Louise Fletcher) and Best Screenplay, Kesey himself was not
happy with it. He ended up suing the producers and later reached
a settlement, never watching the film. So right about now you
might be saying to yourself, how could he be so unhappy (and
win a lawsuit) if he never saw the freakin” final product? Why
because he”s Ken Kesey, that”s why. Oh well, he made it to Bar
Chat, mainly because I don”t have my extensive research library
with me on this trip and I had nothing else to write about.
Stuff
–Actually, my Godmother was telling me today about the
haunted chair she once had. Now Anne Marie is a former
professor at the University of Pittsburgh and a very reputable sort
(as well as being the nicest person God ever created), so I duly
took note of the tale.
It seems that she and her husband Rich, both big antique
shoppers, found this chair about twenty years ago in a home built
in the 1700s. But no sooner did they get it back to their house
when all hell broke loose. First and foremost, the toilets flushed
in the middle of the night, only no one in the family was ever in
the bathroom when this happened. And then one night Anne
Marie is down in the laundry room, doing a few loads of wash,
when over the course of a half hour, a bowl of potting soil
appeared in the middle of the basement steps and eventually
made its way down the stairs, trailing little bits of soil.
Needless to say this freaked her out (actually, the payoff was
when the cat suddenly appeared totally freaked out by something
in the basement as well), the chair was taken to an antique store,
Anne Marie and Rich said nothing to the proprietor, and the
problems in their house immediately stopped. They have no clue
who”s now being freaked out by.the haunted chair.
–The Vietnamese government was successful in tranquilizing the
first of a herd of wild elephants believed responsible for 12
farmers” deaths in the last 3 years. The offender will be
rehabilitated with tame members of the species, perhaps as a
computer programmer.
–Seen Tuesday on CNN”s news scrawl, “Diet rich in spinach and
blueberries helps prevent aging rats from losing mental edge.”
Which I guess means that they stay on the wheel. Also seen on
the scrawl, “Pennsylvania woman with glass eye shot in her good
eye during a barroom brawl.” Probably not a great catch, guys.
–I”ve never been a big Mark McGwire fan, because he was
clearly “juiced” the past few years, but he did show me
something by walking away from $30 million, which he would
have received for just hanging around the Cardinals the next two
seasons. Among players with 500 career home runs, McGwire
retires as #1 in at bats / HR.10.6.and ranks 5th on the all time
list with 583. He will now join Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken
(and possibly Rickey Henderson) in the Hall of Fame class of
2006.
Top 3 songs for the week of 11/16/74: #1 “Whatever Gets You
Through The Night” (John Lennon with the Plastic Ono Nuclear
Band) #2 “Do It (”Til You”re Satisfied)” (B.T. Express) #3 “My
Melody Of Love” (Bobby Vinton)
Green Bay Packers Quiz Answers: 1) Rushing, career: Jim
Taylor – 8,207 yards. 2) Passing yards, season: Lynn Dickey –
4,458 (1983) 3) Receptions, career: Sterling Sharpe – 595
4) TD, career: Don Hutson – 105.
Next Bar Chat, Friday.
