I’ve Seen Fire And I’ve Seen Rain

James Taylor scored big in the 70s with his mellow hit “Fire And Rain.”   But have you ever heard the sad story behind the song?  The story is some friends of Taylor were going to surprise him by flying his girlfriend Suzanne (who he had not seen in months) to one of his concerts.  But the plane crashes and Suzanne dies…

Lyrics:

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Susanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can’t remember who to send it to

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you again

Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus
You’ve got to help me make a stand
You’ve just got to see me through another day
My body’s aching and my time is at hand
And I won’t make it any other way

Been walking my mind to an easy time my back turned towards the sun
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it’ll turn your head around
Well, there’s hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things to come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground

Tragic, huh?  But it isn’t true!  The real story, though, is no less tragic.  Suzanne was an old friend of Taylor’s who he had not seen in years.  She sang lead in a band in the 60s called “Flying Machine.”  She committed suicide while he was recording an album and his friend didn’t tell him for fear he’d lose his focus (he was a heroin addict at the time.)

OK, now that that question has finally been answered, tell me something I don’t know!

Superman Fights The KKK And His Creator’s Kinky Side Job!

Ask anyone.  I love Superman!   And here are some little known things about the character.

From Mentalfloss magazine: In the 1940s, The Adventures of Superman was a radio sensation. Kids across the country huddled around their sets as the Man of Steel leapt off the page and over the airwaves. Although Superman had been fighting crime in print since 1938, the weekly audio episodes fleshed out his storyline even further. It was on the radio that Superman first faced kryptonite, met The Daily Planet reporter Jimmy Olsen, and became associated with “truth, justice, and the American way.” So, it’s no wonder that when a young writer and activist named Stetson Kennedy decided to expose the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, he looked to a certain superhero for inspiration.

In the post-World War II era, the Klan experienced a huge resurgence. Its membership was skyrocketing, and its political influence was increasing, so Kennedy went undercover to infiltrate the group. By regularly attending meetings, he became privy to the organization’s secrets. But when he took the information to local authorities, they had little interest in using it. The Klan had become so powerful and intimidating that police were hesitant to build a case against them. Struggling to make use of his findings, Kennedy approached the writers of the Superman radio serial. It was perfect timing. With the war over and the Nazis no longer a threat, the producers were looking for a new villain for Superman to fight. The KKK was a great fit for the role. In a 16-episode series titled “Clan of the Fiery Cross,” the writers pitted the Man of Steel against the men in white hoods. As the storyline progressed, the shows exposed many of the KKK’s most guarded secrets. By revealing everything from code words to rituals, the program completely stripped the Klan of its mystique. Within two weeks of the broadcast, KKK recruitment was down to zero. And by 1948, people were showing up to Klan rallies just to mock them.

Superman artist’s kinky side

Superman just might be the most recognizable comics character on earth, but things haven’t always been good for the artist who originally helped create him.  After selling away his portion of the rights to the character for considerably less than they were worth, artist Joe Shuster took a job illustrating S&M magazine Nights of Horror in the 1950s. No one seemed to notice the the kinky characters he drew had a striking resemblance to Superman and Lois Lane!

You know you want to click here and see more, don’t you?    Well, make sure you come back and tell me something I don’t know!

BIG Mistake!

We’ve all made mistakes, right? Well, here’s a list of some of the biggest ones ever made!

After auditioning for Decca Records, the company rejected the Beatles claiming “guitar groups are on the way out.”

Universal Studios passed on George Lucas’s Star Wars. Studio honchos said “science fiction movies are poison at the ticket counter.” It was eventually made by 20th Century Fox.

On October 2, 1954, a teenage Elvis Presley made his first (and only) performance at the Grand Ole Opry. After the show he was told by Opry manager Jim Denny that he ought to return to Memphis to resume his truck-driving career.

Now, tell me something I don’t know!

Stonehenge in Lake Michigan?

For the last month or so, various media outlets and archeology sources have been buzzing about what could be a Stonehenge-like structure in deep in the waters of Lake Michigan.

NBC News Chicago: The iconic Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, but it is not the only stone formation of its kind. Similar stone alignments have been found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales… and now, it seems, in Lake Michigan.

According to BLDGBLOG, in 2007, Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones arranged in a circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. One stone outside the circle seems to have carvings that resemble a mastodon—an elephant-like animal that went extinct about 10,000 years ago.

Archaeologists had been hired to survey the Lake’s floor near Traverse City, Michigan, and examine old boat wrecks with a sonar device. They discovered sunken boats and cars and even a Civil War-era pier. But among these expected finds was a potentially-prehistoric surprise.

“When you see it in the water, you’re tempted to say this is absolutely real,” Holley told reporters at the time. “But that’s what we need the experts to come in and verify.”

Now, tell me something I don’t know!

What A Family!

My last post on US Presidents got me thinking about a little know fact concerning Little House On The Prairie, the series of books and TV show many of us grew up on.

Laura Ingalls Wilder (of “Little House on the Prairie” fame) was born to parents Charles Phillip Ingalls and Caroline Lake (Quiner) Ingalls. Charles’ paternal grandmother (and Laura’s great grandmother) was Margaret Delano, of the famed Delano family.

The Delano family in America was founded by Philippe Delano (de Lannoy), a 19-year-old Separatist of Walloon descent who arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts on November 9, 1621 on the ship Fortune.

Direct descendants of the Delanos include not only Laura Ingalls Wilder, but also President Ulysses S. Grant, astronaut Alan B. Shepard, poet Conrad Potter Aiken, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Now, tell me something I don’t know!

Historians Rate The Presidents

Late last week C-SPAN released the results of its second Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership, in which a cross-section of 65 presidential historians ranked the 42 former occupants of the White House on ten attributes of leadership.

Here are the results I find the most interesting:

In these dire economic times, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, architect of the New Deal that lifted the US out of the Great Depression,  finishes #3 overall but only finishes #5 in economic management.   Meanwhile, William Jefferson Clinton climbs from #21 overall 9 years ago to #15 overall on the strength of his #3 rating in economic management.

Clinton has perhaps benefited from George W. Bush’s #36 rating overall and his #4o rating on economic management.

Get all the stats here.  And as always, tell me something I don’t know!

The Most Valuable Comic Books

As someone who has a large semi-valuable comic book collection co-owned by my brother, this is a topic near and dear to my heart. Much of my childhood was spent going to yard sales and sneaking peaks into people’s old dusty attics looking for those ever-elusive rare and valuable comic books. Once my mother told me her mother threw out her box of comics when she was a little girl. DOH! Being born in 1936, it’s possible she had Action Comics #1, from 1938 and the first appearance of Superman, now valued at close to half a million dollars!

Here, now, are the top 10 most valuable comic books:

#9
Whiz Comics #1

Published in February 1940-and confusingly labeled “2″, it was the first comic book to feature Captain Marvel.

Approximate value in 2004 (In “near mint” condition):
$84,0000 USD.

#9 (Tie With Whiz Comics #1)
More Fun Comics #52

The Spectre made his debut in the issue dated February 1940.

Approximate Value (In “near mint” condition):
$84,000 USD.

#8
Flash Comics #1

Dated January 1940, and featuring the Flash, it is rare because it was produced in small numbers for promotional purposes, and was unique as issue number 2 was retitled “Whiz Comics”

Approximate Value (In “near mint” condition):
$97,000 USD.

#6
Captain America Comics #1

Published in March 1941, this was the original comic book in which Captain America appeared.

Approximate Value (In “near mint” condition):
$125,000 USD.

#6 (Tie with Captain America #1)
Batman #1

Published in Spring, 1940, this was the first comic book devoted to Batman.

Approximate Value (In “near mint” condition):
$125,000 USD.

#5
All American Comics #16

The Green Lantern made his debut in the issue dated July 1940.

Approximate Value (In “near mint” condition):
$160,000 USD.

#4
Superman #1

The first comic book devoted to Superman, reprinting the original Action Comics story, was published in the summer of 1939.

Approximate Value (In “near mint” condition):
$270,000 USD.

#2
Detective Comics #27

Issued in May 1939, it is prized as the first comic book to feature Batman.

Approximate Value (In “near mint” condition):
$375,000 USD.

#1
Action Comics #1

Published in June of 1938, the first issue of Action Comics marked the original appearance of Superman.

Approximate Value (In “near mint” condition):
$440,000 USD.

Now, Tell Me Something I Don’t Know!

The Oldest Known Photographs

Photographs!  Something we all take for granted.  I have boxes of them and, more recently, gigabytes of digital ones.  My mom has old black and white ones of me as a kid and instant (but now fading) poloroid ones.  So this morning I got to wondering what the oldest know photographs look like.

Modern photography began in the 1820s, and the oldest surviving photograph known was taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, a Frenchman who has been called the inventor of photography. It was taken in 1825 of a engraving of a young boy leading a horse.

The surviving photo was recently auctioned off in 2002 for just under $400,000. Niépce coated a copper plate with a kind of light-sensitive bitumenin and was able to use that to create a negative of a photograph.

Niépce also took the second-oldest surviving photo in 1826 of a view outside a window in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, Niépce had to expose an  oil-treated bitumen for eight hours.

Here is the first photo of a human being. It was taken in 1838 by Louis Daguerre of a busy French street.

Curious about the first COLOR photographs?  Click here.  But be sure to come back and Tell ME Something I Don’t Know!