Daytona 500 Quiz: 1) Who was the first winner in 1959? 2)
Who won in 1962, initials F.R.? 3) How many times did Richard
Petty win? 4) Who is the only two-time winner over the last
eight years? Answers below.
Final Vegas Bits
–We pick up the story of the seven lads in Vegas, Wednesday
p.m., as the remaining four of us first watched the Duke-UNC
basketball game (I won my bet on Duke, but lost on Wake
Forest’s contest with Georgia Tech), then headed to Wynn’s for
another great feed, then back to Mandalay Bay and a late night of
blackjack, alternating with beers in one of the bars there.
[Actually, for three of us it was more beer than blackjack.] It
ended up being the second consecutive 3:00 am+ bedtime, with
all in agreement we had never done this before in our lives.
Heck, in college the bars or campus parties were required to shut
down at 1:00 am, at the latest.
But on Thursday, after a major veg-out session, the other three
left, leaving me alone to start the great catch-up on the world and
get some much-needed sleep before tackling that other column I
do. At least on Friday, work mostly completed, I caught
comedian Norm MacDonald at Mandalay’s House of Blues, after
offering the tickets to loyal reader “Shu” who was in town for a
convention. Shu had to pass, but that allows me to give him
some ink time. As for MacDonald, his act was very
disappointing but the venue is cool. Finally, on Saturday I
headed home and as I write this, Sunday, I’m still a little numb.
I think if we had to do it over again we would have caught
another show, rather than, err, you know, go to, err, you know,
the other spots in town. At least that’s how I’d do it. We also
spent an ungodly amount on food and drink at dinner and you
can obviously cut down in those categories. But for a splurge
with good friends you can’t beat Sin City.
Lastly, in case you were wondering, Tiger Woods is 8-1 to win
the Grand Slam; incredibly low odds in my book, but I now have
$50 on him so come Masters’ time, Go Tiger! [You can mail in
any winning tickets to the sports book. I was thinking of betting
on the Mets and Jets, too, while I was there but passed. I think
the Mets were 5-1 to win the Series, while the Jets are 75-1 to
win the next Super Bowl. For the week, all betting combined, I
ended up a whopping $30. But that was the worst any of us did.]
–After the fire on the roof of the Monte Carlo hotel/casino, the
first thing we did when checking into our rooms was look for the
fire exits. The Monte Carlo fire was a reminder of the horrific
MGM Grand Hotel blaze in Las Vegas back in 1980 that killed a
staggering 84 and injured more than 700.
I looked up a piece from TIME magazine by James Kelly back in
Dec. ’80 and learned this.
“The fire was believed to have been caused by an electrical wire
that short-circuited above the kitchen of the hotel’s ground-floor
delicatessen. According to (officials), the blaze may have
smoldered for at least an hour before spreading to a catwalk on
the next floor used by hotel guards to monitor the gambling in
the casino. The flames raced along the catwalk and then swept
down and back across the casino. Except for the twelve people
killed in the casino, most of the deaths took place on the upper
floors, when thick, black smoke mixed with poisonous gases
from the casino’s burning plastic decorations swirled upward
through air ducts, stair wells and elevator shafts.”
The MGM Grand, built in 1973, had been exempt from a more
recent regulation requiring sprinklers and smoke detectors on
every floor.
–Producers of Cher’s new three-year deal at the Colosseum at
Caesars Palace hope to sell out 200 shows over that time, two
long stretches each year, with tickets going for $95 to $250.
Cher, 61, will be performing at the 4,200-seat theater built for
Celine Dion.
Cher promises to try things “I don’t think anyone’s ever done. If
we pull it off we’ll be great, and if we don’t we’ll look real
stupid.” [I’m thinking they are going to try and stampede a
bunch of wildebeest without hurting anyone or damaging the
set.] Cher previously grossed $33.8 million at the MGM Grand
in 2004. Bette Midler also has a big production at the
Colosseum.
—
Steve Martin
I was reading a piece by him in the February 2008 Smithsonian,
adapted from his “Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life,” and I
pass along the following bits.
Back in 1971, Martin was beginning to make a name for himself,
having appeared on a number of daytime television shows
ranging from Della Reese, Merv Griffin, Virginia Graham, Dinah
Shore, Mike Douglas and Steve Allen, which helped him get a
five-week stint opening Ann-Margret’s show at the Hilton in
Vegas:
“(A) huge, unfunny barn with sculptured pink cherubs hanging
from the corners of the proscenium. Laughter in these poorly
designed places rose a few feet into the air and dissipated like
steam, always giving me the feeling I was bombing. One night,
from my dressing room, I saw a vision in white gliding down the
hall – a tall, striking woman, moving like an apparition along the
backstage corridor. It turned out to be Priscilla Presley, coming
to visit Ann-Margret after having seen the show. When she
turned the corner, she revealed an even more indelible presence
walking behind her. Elvis. Dressed in white. Jet-black hair. A
diamond-studded buckle.
“When Priscilla revealed Elvis to me, I was also revealed to
Elvis. I’m sure he noticed that this 25-year-old stick figure was
frozen firmly to the ground. About to pass me by, Elvis stopped,
looked at me and said in his beautiful Mississippi drawl: ‘Son,
you have an ob-leek sense of humor.’ Later, after his visit with
Ann-Margret, he stopped by my dressing room and told me that
he, too, had an oblique sense of humor – which he did – but that
his audience didn’t get it. Then he said, ‘Do you want to see my
guns?’ After emptying the bullets into his palm, he showed me
two pistols and a derringer.”
Martin was first booked on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny
Carson” in October 1972.
“There was a belief that one appearance on ‘The Tonight Show’
made you a star. But here are the facts. The first time you do the
show, nothing. The second time you do the show, nothing. The
sixth time you do the show, someone might come up to you and
say, ‘Hi, I think we met at Harry’s Christmas party.’ The tenth
time you do the show, you could conceivably be remembered as
being seen somewhere on television. The 12th time you do the
show, you might hear, ‘Oh, I know you. You’re that guy.’”
Martin did alright his first several times, but “Another time I
claimed that I could read from the phone book and make it
funny. I opened the book and droned the names to the
predictable silence, then I pretended to grow more and more
desperate and began to do retro shtick such as cracking eggs on
my head. I got word that Johnny was not thrilled, and I was
demoted to appearing with guest hosts, which I tried not to admit
to myself was a devastating blow.”
After this Martin became a vagabond and one week in Los
Angeles he opened for Linda Ronstadt, who “sang barefoot on a
raised stage and wore a silver lame dress that stopped a
millimeter below her panties, causing the floor of the club to be
slick with drool. Linda and I saw each other for a while, but I
was so intimidated by her talent and street smarts that, after the
ninth date, she said, ‘Steve, do you often date girls and not try to
sleep with them?’ We parted chaste.”
But Martin’s consistent work around the country, including a lot
of schools, allowed him to hone his act and then one night in
Florida, as his show ended he took the audience outside “into the
street (to) roam around in front of the club, making wisecracks. I
didn’t quite know how to end the show. First I started
hitchhiking; a few cars passed me by. Then a taxi came by. I
hailed it and got in. I went around the block, returned and waved
at the audience – still standing there – then drove off and never
came back. The next morning I received one of the most crucial
reviews of my life. John Huddy, the respected entertainment
critic for the Miami Herald, devoted his entire column to my act.
Without qualification, he raved in paragraph after paragraph,
starting with HE PARADES HIS HILARITY RIGHT OUT
INTO THE STREET, and concluded with: ‘Steve Martin is the
brightest, cleverest, wackiest new comedian around.’”
Martin at this time was still appearing on “The Tonight Show,”
but always with a guest host, until finally Johnny’s producer said
“We had a meeting with Johnny yesterday, told him you’d been a
smash twice with guest hosts, and he agrees you should be back
on with him. So I think that hurdle is over.” Martin was booked
for September 1974, and writes of Johnny, with whom he ended
up having a 30-year relationship:
“Johnny once joked in his monologues: ‘I announced that I was
going to write my autobiography, and 19 publishers went out and
copyrighted the title ‘Cold and Aloof.’ This was the common
perception of him. But Johnny was not aloof; he was polite. He
did not presume intimate relationships where there were none; he
took time, and with time grew trust. He preserved his dignity by
maintaining the personality that was appropriate for him.
“Johnny enjoyed the delights of split-second timing, of watching
a comedian squirm and then rescue himself, of the surprises that
can arise in the seconds of desperation when the comedian senses
that his joke might fall to silence. For my first show back, I
chose to do a bit I had developed years earlier. I speed-talked a
Vegas nightclub act in two minutes. Appearing on the show was
Sammy Davis Jr., who, while still performing energetically, had
also become a historic showbiz figure. I was whizzing along,
singing a four-second version of ‘Ebb Tide,’ then saying at
lighting speed, ‘Frank Sinatra personal friend of mine Sammy
Davis Jr. personal friend of mine Steve Martin I’m a personal
friend of mine too and now a little dancin’!’ I started a wild flail,
which I must say was pretty funny, when a showbiz miracle
occurred. The camera cut away to a dimly lit Johnny, just as he
whirled up from his chair, doubling over with laughter.
Suddenly, subliminally, I was endorsed. At the end of the act,
Sammy came over and hugged me. I felt like I hadn’t been
hugged since I was born.
“This was my 16th appearance on the show, and the first one I
could really call a smash. The next day, elated by my success, I
walked into an antiques store on La Brea. The woman behind
the counter looked at me.
“ ‘Are you that boy who was on ‘The Tonight Show’ last night?’
“ ‘Yes,’ I said.
“ ‘Yuck!’ she blurted out.”
—
Heroes
From Newsweek and a story by Dan Ephron I learned that 245
GIs received the Medal of Honor for service in Vietnam and 465
in World War II. But thus far only two have been so honored for
their service in Iraq, with a third awaiting presidential approval.
More than a few are unhappy about this seeming discrepancy.
As for the third candidate, Rafael Peralta, Ephron writes:
“Peralta volunteered for a mission to clear insurgents from a
neighborhood in Fallujah in November 2004. He charged into
several homes, leading a squad of eight men. In the fifth home,
gunmen ambushed the Marines, shooting Sergeant Peralta in the
face and neck. Cpl. Robert Reynolds, who fought alongside
Peralta and took a bullet in the arm, says he saw Peralta melt
onto the floor and lie in a pool of blood. Then Reynolds spotted
what is the dread of every infantryman: a grenade bouncing
toward the squad. ‘It was yellow and it came from a room to our
side,’ he says. Reynolds says he watched Peralta reach out and
drag the grenade under his body. Peralta died in the explosion;
others in the room sustained only light wounds.”
Stuff
–I watched the Grammy Awards, up until the very end, and here
are some of my observations.
Carrie Underwood looked good. Very, very good.
I can’t stand Amy Winehouse and am ticked off I bought her album.
Geezuz, that song sucks.
I never liked Tina Turner.
What? They just got around to giving Burt Bacharach a lifetime
achievement Grammy? Are they freakin’ nuts?!
Tony Bennett and Andy Williams are getting old.
I told you “Love” was good.
Great to see The Time.
So much for the Michael Jackson rumor. Guess he couldn’t find
his face in time.
Sorry, but I like Kid Rock. Not his music, necessarily, but I
wouldn’t mind being him for a day, know what I’m sayin’?
I miss Johnny Cash. I also miss Carroll O’Connor and Johnny
Carson, but I digress.
–Well, finally the Roger Clemens / Brian McNamee steroids
tussle is coming to a head as both are scheduled to testify
publicly at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee this week. McNamee told baseball
investigator George Mitchell that he injected Clemens at least 16
times with steroids and HGH in 1998, 2000, and 2001, and not
only has McNamee evidently produced physical evidence –
bloody gauze pads, used syringes, empty steroid vials – but then
McNamee said Clemens’ wife took HGH before a Sports
Illustrated photo shoot at the direction of her husband. The
Rocket and his attorneys of course vehemently deny all charges
as Clemens made the rounds on Capitol Hill, seeking support.
Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the only member of the
Oversight Committee known to have personally attended Roger’s
five-hour deposition, told the New York Daily News that he
expects the committee to pass the whole matter over to the
Justice Department. [Michael O’Keeffe and team / Daily News]
Mike Lupica / New York Daily News
“These are no longer congressional hearings anybody can take
seriously. They have turned into nothing more than a show, and
occasionally a clown show, before they even start up again,
Roger Clemens having been allowed to go door-to-door with his
story the way guys used to go door-to-door with vacuum
cleaners.
“Rusty Hardin, Clemens’ lead guy, probably wishes the legal
system worked this way, so all his clients could get to know
jurors better before the trial begins.
“The baseball hearings that being Wednesday, the ones where we
get to see and hear Clemens and McNamee and Andy Pettitte,
are now useful in one way and only one way: All of these people
have to put their hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth in
front of the world….
“There is this notion that because McNamee hasn’t come close to
being a Boy Scout in his life that he has to be the one lying now,
that he is more likely to be lying than a big baseball star like
Roger Clemens. Except that athletes lie all the time if it suits
them, just like everybody else. Or they lie when they get caught.
They lie about steroids, about where they’re getting their
steroids, the lie about strip clubs and their friends at the gym and
trainers and girlfriends.”
But now Jose Canseco is defending Clemens, after implicating
him before. Yes, just turn this over to the Feds while the rest of
us prepare for “pitchers and catchers.” I’m ready for real
baseball.
–Nice move by Seattle to pick up Baltimore pitcher Erik Bedard,
a budding superstar and perhaps better than Johan Santana over
the next five seasons.
–The cost for the new Yankee Stadium, on schedule for the 2009
season opener, is now $1.3 billion and not $830 million as
originally estimated. Yikes! Expect single-game ticket prices of
$8,975 for upper deck reserved. The only ones who will be able
to afford this will be Arab sheikhs. But then it will be just as
easy for the rest of us to watch on our 90” flat screens and not
have to deal with the traffic. [The Mets’ new ballpark is also
opening next year and I’m expecting ticket prices there to come
in at $11,475 for a field-level box seat.]
–Phil W. alerted me to the UNC-Clemson game yesterday,
specifically the Tigers’ 0-52 record vs. the Tar Heels at Chapel
Hill, and wouldn’t you know Clemson lost in double OT. The
now 0-53 mark is a record of futility for the NCAA….most
consecutive home wins by one team over another.
–Selena Roberts / Sports Illustrated on Bill Belichick’s post-
game behavior following the Pats’ loss to the Giants.
“While some Patriots remained inside the locker room to console
one another, Belichick burned rubber. He rudely fled the field
before the final tick of the game. Then, once he grunted through
a press conference in his best ‘Sling Blade’ imitation, he briskly
dragged a roller bag through the stadium corridor as he escaped
the scene of Perfectus Interruptus, brushing past well-wishers
who raised hands as if to pat him on the back but thought better
of it. Don’t mess with genius. Not a good time.
“And who should have halted Belichick’s bid for unbeaten glory
but a player who most surely had been persecuted, and not just
for 18 games? Quarterback Eli Manning had been a whipping
boy for four years, as New York fans and media collectively
decided that the Giants had gotten the dregs of the Manning gene
pool with the first pick in the 2004 draft. Eli wasn’t pugnacious
or loquacious or victorious. He wasn’t Peyton at all. What a rip-
off….
“So after Belichick’s grumpy exit and as other Giants carried
their Louis Vuitton duffels to the team bus, the Super Bowl’s
MVP toted a gray backpack you’d swear contained a juice box.
Eli’s perpetual bed head was still wet from a shower. His tie was
askew, his face familiarly calm.
“So just who is the smarty-pants now? Affable Eli Manning had
just schooled the great Bill Belichick in the skills of grace.”
–Story in the Sunday New York Times on the ongoing
investigation into running back Reggie Bush and allegations he
took as much as $300,000 in cash and goods while at USC. Bush
and his family have refused to cooperate as Lloyd Lake, his chief
accuser, says he’s issued a subpoena compelling Bush to testify.
Lake and Bush had agreed to start a sports marketing company
together, but then Bush hired a different agent when he decided
to leave USC early to enter the draft. At this point, though, if
Bush is found to have broken NCAA rules, he would probably
only lose his Heisman Trophy. Southern Cal itself, however,
could be forced to forfeit games if it knew of Bush’s activities.
My friends and I were discussing this case in Vegas, with one of
our group living in California, and it seems pretty clear to all
Bush is guilty and should lose the Heisman. But I hope the
school is innocent.
–Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo pulled out of the
Washington Redskins’ head coaching search to sign a 3-year,
$2mm per, contract extension to stay with New York. $2 million
for a defensive coordinator! Goodness gracious. [The Redskins
ended up signing former quarterback Jim Zorn.]
–Sad news, long-time Mets fans. Karl Ehrhardt, the sign man
who was a fixture at Mets games from 1964 through 1981, died
the other day at the age of 83. [Actually, I thought he had died
years ago.]
–Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez is a target of the Humane Society
of the United States and PETA because both he and Hall of
Famer Juan Marichal are shown on YouTube releasing roosters
just before they engage in a cockfight in their native Dominican
Republic, where the sport is legal. But they were both celebrity
attendees and didn’t own the roosters, plus it took place two
years ago. This is not the same as Michael Vick’s case in any
shape or form. PETA and the Humane Society want Martinez to
take an animal sensitivity course. I guess that means I should too
because I want to kill all the Canadian Geese that do nothing but
crap all over our playing fields and foul our reservoirs.
–American skier Lindsay Vonn won her 9th career World Cup
downhill race at Sestriere, Italy, tying Picabo Street and Daron
Rahlves. She is also currently leading the World Cup standings.
–We note the passing of the great actor Roy Scheider of “Jaws,”
“Klute,” “All That Jazz,” and “French Connection” fame. I
remember him for one of my favorite movies as a kid,
“Sorcerer.”
–Brad K. passed along this tale, dateline Bangkok, Thailand:
“A leatherneck turtle has been tracked swimming from the coast
of the Papua province in Indonesia to Oregon, researchers said,
in what may be the longest trip for marine vertebrae between
breeding and feeding sites.
“ ‘This is an animal perfectly suited for doing this kind of
journey,’ said Scott Benson, research fishery biologist for the
U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, who helped track the
turtle and presented details of the journey at a sea turtle
symposium last month.
“The longest distance of nine turtles tagged in 2003, Benson
said, was the leatherback that reached Oregon and then headed to
Hawaii before the battery on the satellite transmitter gave out.
The 12,774-mile journey took 647 days, he said.”
But Brad correctly points out that this story is more than about
individual heroism. What if the leatherback had been packing a
WMD? Where is the security?
Top 3 songs for the week 2/13/71: #1 “One Bad Apple” (The
Osmonds) #2 “Knock Three Times” (Dawn) #3 “Rose Garden”
(Lynn Anderson)…and…#4 “I Hear You Knocking” (Dave
Edmunds) #5 “Lonely Days” (Bee Gees) #6 “My Sweet Lord”
(George Harrison) #7 “Groove Me” (King Floyd) #8 “Your
Song” (Elton John…top twenty on your editor’s personal all-
time list) #9 “If I Were Your Woman” (Gladys Knight & The
Pips) #10 “Mama’s Pearl” (The Jackson 5)
*It happened again…on New York radio, that is. Long-time cool
jazz station CD101.9 was pulled for a rock format. Seriously, a
big blow to the artists in this genre.
Daytona 500 Quiz Answers: 1) Lee Petty won the inaugural 500
in 1959. 2) Fireball Roberts won in 1962. 3) Richard Petty won
seven times (1964, 66, 71, 73, 74, 79 and 81). 4) Michael
Waltrip (2001, 03) is the only one to win the race twice over the
last eight years.
Next Bar Chat, Thursday.
Happy Birthday to our Lamb in Command creator, Harry, who
also happens to be a pretty cool brother, as in come holiday time
he supplies the premium. [Big Bro is a huge Roy Scheider fan
as well.]
