No that's not Roger Clemens salary for signing with the Yankees. Not Street Sense's bounty from the Kentucky Derby either. By the way, my pick, Scat Daddy is rounding the clubhouse turn and will soon be within sight of the finish line. Of all the big stories of the weekend: Clemens, hockey and basketball playoffs, the Derby, Mayweather beating De La Hoya, Paris getting a jail term. You name it - they all pale in comparison with the new box-office champ, "Spider-Man 3". That $148 million is just the domestic number. Adding in foreign receipts, the gross figure swells to $375 million worldwide. This movie looks like it will top "Titanic's" all-time #1 grossing figure of $600 million (domestic) and $1.8 billion (worldwide). Spidey has already netted Sony $117 million over its $258 million production budget. Even David Letterman got spidermania, here's his top 10 list (in RealPlayer): http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/video_player/index/php/918912.phtml ...
At about the same time Paul Power was sending me an e-mail on a Rock and Roll "Happy Trails" I missed, I was reading about it in the Sunday papers. Zola Taylor, a member of the original Platters passed away on April 30th of pneumonia. Zola was 69. Taylor, the sister of Cornell Gunter of the Coasters was one of 3 women claiming to be Frankie Lymon's widow and fought over his royalties. One of the other two women was chosen by the courts as being that woman...
One other item from Claude Hall. Bill Mouzis, former engineer from the legendary KHJ has assembled KHJ History of Rock and Roll memorabilia material and publicity at http://www.93khjhistoryofrockandroll.com/ . Related material will continue to be added periodically. You can read more by going to: http://www.claudehallonline.com/ . The original scripts were chiefly written by Sandy Johnson of the Los Angeles Times and provided to KHJ and all the other Drake consulted RKO stations who produced their own versions. At WRKO Frank Kingston Smith a.k.a. Bobby Mitchell voiced ours and won a corporate verdict as the best of all Drake/RKO stations, thanks to Frank, Paul Power and the WRKO technicians who supplied the production and production supervision and mechanics...
10 Timeline Memories:
- Ball One: 1789] The 1st inaugural ball is held in honor of President George Washington and his wife Martha with music provided by Lester Lanin...
- The opening shot is fired: 1903] It all started with this game. Boston faces off against New York for the 1st time as the Pilgrims beat the Highlanders 6-2 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. Bill Dinneen is the winning pitcher for Boston. Hobe Ferris homers...
- The Name Game: 1946] The Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corp. is founded. The company will be renamed SONY...1968] British singer Reginald Dwight changes his name to Elton John...
- Doctor my Eyes: 1957] A line-drive off the bat of Yankee Gil McDougald severely damages Cleveland pitcher Herb Score's right eye, effectively ruining his career. Two years later he retires...
- Not Keane on Johnny: 1966] After winning 4 games out of the 1st 20 as Yankee manager, Johnny Keane is fired and replaced by Ralph Houk. And this was 7 years before George Steinbrenner...
- Derby disgrace: 1968] Dancer's Image, winner of the Kentucky Derby 3 days earlier is disqualified after it's discovered that the horse was injected by the painkiller 'bute' to reduce inflammation of the joints. Forward Pass who finished 2nd is declared the winner of the KD...
- The curtain comes down: 1987] Shelly Long a.k.a. Diane Chambers makes her last appearance as a regular on "Cheers" and here's that scene: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5elGw_EV4IA ...
- Jenny, Jenny, Jenny: 1999] A jury in Pontiac (MI) orders "The Jenny Jones Show" to pay $25 million to the family of a gay man who was shot to death after revealing a crush on a male guest on the show. The award will be overturned on appeal...
- You don't want to be registered like this: 2003] Pete Townshend of the Who is cleared of possessing pornographic images of children but is placed on a national register of sex offenders for 5 years for being guilty of accessing a child pornography Internet site in 1999...
- Smile, you're on Kiss-Cam: 2003] A man wanted by police for drug and parole violations is seen on camera at a Reds game in Cincinnati kissing his girlfriend during 'Kiss-Cam'. The 24-year old is busted by his parole office who was watching...
- "Happy Trails": 2002] 25 years to the exact date that Seattle Slew won the Kentucky Derby, the 1st of his Triple Crown victories in 1977, the great Slew died at the age of 28...
Music Memory...
- With Jimmy Ruffin celebrating his 68th birthday today, here's a video of "What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted": http://youtube.com/watch?v=uyjE0joLYAU
[To ensure accuracy of dates and content, multiple reference sources are used in each timeline]...
Commentary...
Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert were not the only famous horse owners to have an entry in the Kentucky Derby. The late Tommy Valando's wife (Nobizlikeshowbiz) did too. And who was Tommy Valando? Marty Ostrow tells us: "Tommy was one of the great music publisher's of the day. He guided Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. When I was a young reporter for Cash Box, one of my early chores was writing a column on music publishing. On one of my visits to the Brill Building I walked into Tommy's office and finding out that I was Jewish Tommy told me about this musical he was doing based on a Jewish community in Russia back in the 30's and then on piano played a few of the songs Bock and Harnick were writing for the musical. I listened and gave the okay to "If I Were A Rich Man" and "Anatevka" since they sounded like what my Mom used to sing to me when I was a toddler. The musical of course was "Fiddler On The Roof" and that was my big contribution to the world of the Broadway musical theatre." Thanks Marty for that historic memory. Marty's e-mail was edited for purposes of space...
"Happy Birthday...happy birthday":
Robert ("Epstein") Hegyes (56), Tim Russert (57), Jimmy Ruffin (68), Johnny Maestro (68), Teresa Brewer (76) and former WNEW DJ and singer ("Green Door") Jim Lowe (80)...
Timeline Countdown: 21 days until Memorial Day...
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