Episode Transcript
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Speaker (00:21):
Hello and welcome to
Fun Facts and Sidetracks.
Al (00:24):
Welcome.
My name's Al and with me asalways, is my good friend.
Mart.
I'm good.
Al yourself?
Yeah.
Good, For those who haven'theard the podcast before, this
is where we take a prettylighthearted look at those
things that often make youthink, what on earth were they
thinking?
How did that happen?
Or with a healthy dose of funfacts that confirm that the
(00:46):
truth really is stranger thanfiction.
A quick disclaimer just to saythat we don't claim to be
experts.
We're just mates having a bitof a chat about the things that
interest us.
We spread the net far and wideto.
Research different topics, andwe kind of call on stories from
our backgrounds, I guess, mark.
but please, if the facts aren'ta hundred percent correct, then
(01:08):
don't take us to court.
We're just having a bit of funhere.
Send us an email Exactly Yeah.
To fun facts andsidetracks@gmail.com.
Okay.
We've got some fun stuff tochat about, Mart, so let's,
(01:29):
yeah, let's get into it.
What have we got?
As always, we really like tohave a look at those.
Songs that were passed up bydifferent artists over the
years, the ones that got away.
And first up, Mart I know apersonal favorite of yours.
It's Raining Men.
Well, how did you know that?
I just know.
(01:50):
I've heard your playlist.
anyway, look, it was offered toDiana Ross, to Donna Summer to
Cher and Barbara Streisand and,they all turned it down.
Yeah, but ultimately a bandcalled The Weather Girls took
that song and far out, it's beencovered so many times and it's
a massive success.
(02:11):
Didn't B e tte Middler do aversion of it?
Look, she probably did.
There's, there's been, I thinkthere's been a lot of cover
versions once people realized itwas, it was a good song.
Yeah, exactly.
See, so why are you having togo at me al?
well, I'm not, I'm not, I thinkit's a terrific idea.
Now another one, this is a,just a quick one.
Since you've been gone.
Yeah.
(02:32):
Which Kelly Clarkson belted outback in 2004 that was actually
offered to Pink and to HillaryDuff.
Again, they both passed on it,but, you know, you'd have to say
Kelly Clarkson, whether youliked the song or not made it
her own.
She belts it out and it's aphenomenal anthem for its time.
Yeah.
So crazy.
(02:52):
Good song.
Yeah.
Good song.
Another one is how will I knowwhich of course is synonymous
with Whitney Houston.
Whitney Houston, that wasoffered to Janet Jackson.
There seems to be a lot ofsongs that are offered to Janet
Jackson and they're passed up.
But, yeah, this is one of thosesongs that really broke Whitney
(03:15):
Houston.
What a voice.
Yeah, an amazing Voice.
Yeah.
Like the, the range.
Like how could you, she.
Was that an overdose?
She died of?
Yeah, like have all that talentand just, yeah.
Dion.
Dion, Warwick was her auntie,wasn't it?
Yeah.
Such a, such a waste of talenttoo.
(03:35):
You know, she's in an abusiverelationship and all that stuff.
Yeah.
Who was the dude, what was hisname?
Bobby Brown.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great guy.
But, the person who stuck byWhitney Houston through Thick
and Thin was a guy called CliveDavis.
And for anyone listening whohasn't seen the special on
Netflix, on Clive Davis,terrific.
(03:56):
It's just amazing this guy.
Was the head of, Sony Music,CBS records.
Yeah.
And he is still the guy, andhe's getting on now, but he's
the guy that hosts the GrammyAwards party where all of the
Sony, artists go.
He's the guy who you talk to,Dave Grohl from the Foo
(04:18):
Fighters, Billy Joel, BruceSpringsteen, all those people
just go, yep, he's the man.
So if you haven't seen that,that documentary as, as Molly
Meldrum would say, do yourself afavor.
'cause it's pretty amazing.
He used to get different peopletogether, didn't he?
Didn't he get he did, yeah.
Santana and the guy fromMatchbox.
Yeah, rob Thomas.
(04:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
He, he was amazing at saying,we've got this guy Ana, who's in
his sixties, doesn't sing, justplays guitar.
Mm-hmm.
What are we gonna do with him?
But, and then he had theforesight to go, let's put him
together with Rob Thomas.
Yeah.
And like that song Smooth.
(04:59):
Yeah.
Won the Grammy Supernatural wonthe Grammy for Album of the
year, right?
Yeah.
He had, Aretha Franklin Yep.
Who was legend, but kind of anaging Mm.
You know, kind of rhythm andblue singer.
Yeah.
But he was the guy who said,but what if we put her together
with, the Eurythmics, theEurythmics with Annie, Lennox
(05:20):
and Michael, George Michael.
Yeah.
Like, you just, there's so manyexamples of that stuff.
Yeah.
Where you go.
He's, he's the guy thatdiscovered Janice Joplin.
He, was actually a, a rep forFender Yeah.
Right.
And turned up at, Woodstock.
I think it was Woodstock.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course it was turnedup Woodstock, like in a suit and
tie.
Yeah.
(05:40):
And Janice Joplin's going crazyon stage and he goes, yep, this
is, he's, he's star.
He had no background No.
In music or he just had aflare.
Totally did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What a, an amazing fellow.
And he was a decent sort ofguy.
Oh, he's, he's bailed so manypeople out of crazy contracts
(06:00):
and.
Got them their songs back.
Yeah.
Songs, catalogues that they'velost and all sorts of things.
Wow you can probably tell thatwe are fans of Clive Davis, so
do yourself a favor.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
Marta came across an articlethe other day.
Yep.
(06:20):
Talking about the countries orthe places with the highest life
expectancy.
Yeah.
The average life expectancy,globally is 71.4 years.
That's a given, given I knowI'm, I'm not enjoying that
either.
But it does mean that there's abunch of places where the life
expectancy is much lower that wehave to move to.
(06:43):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
No, we have to go where it'shigher.
Mm.
Because there are some placeswhere people, regularly live to
over a hundred.
So I wouldn't mind moving therequite soon.
Yeah.
So let me just rattle throughthose places.
They're called Blue Zones.
Mm-hmm.
And they're named that becauseon the maps.
They highlight these areas witha blue circle that highlight
(07:06):
the oldest and healthiest peoplein the world.
So, so listen up.
So listen up.
Here's some Blue zones youmight want to visit, SNIA in
Italy.
Sardinia.
Yeah.
And this a bit of a recurringtheme with this.
I have to say.
They live on a largelyplant-based diet.
They get daily physicalactivity.
And, have quite a closeness intheir family setup.
(07:29):
Yeah, I think that's a veryimportant one.
Yeah, totally.
So, a lot of them are sheepherders who tend to walk at
least five miles a day.
So not, not quite so keen onthat side of Well, you do more
than that before a Barney.
I do, so I do mostly carryinghim up and down the stairs.
Yeah.
My cocker spaniel for those whodon't know Barney, yeah.
(07:50):
Okay.
Next up we've got.
Okinawa in Japan.
Yeah, it's an island.
Indeed.
You've been to Okinawa, haven'tyou?
No, I haven't been to Okinawa,but I do hold a first Dan black
belt in karate, which is thebirthplace of, of karate is in
Okinawa.
Oh, okay.
This is, it's a bunch ofislands that's, at the bottom
(08:11):
part of, Japan.
And it was, it was, thepeasants lived there.
Okay.
And they used to grow the ricethere.
To feed the mainland.
And they never used to eat therice because it was, you know,
they was, was what they used tosell.
Mm-hmm.
But they used to eat a purplesweet potato.
(08:33):
So get on this purple sweetpotato.
It's actually very good foryou.
It's a purple sweet potato.
And they eat fish.
They eat meat.
And they live to a long timeand they do karate and they,
they work into their nineties,you know.
Well, I was liking it all upuntil that bit, but Well hold
(08:53):
that thought.
We'll come back to it.
Yeah.
'cause I know you are a, anexponent of the martial arts and
I think there might be somesidetracking going on there.
Okay.
Number three on the list isNicoya in Costa Rica.
Mm-hmm.
Again, they avoid processedfood.
In fact, most of their intakeis from beans, squash, and corn
(09:14):
and tropical fruits.
So, they live to 90 and beyondbecause they're mentally and
spiritually fulfilled.
Okay.
So there you go.
Yeah.
That's the same with theJapanese too.
They're a bit like that.
Yeah.
Well, here's, here's the oddone out for me, and this is Loma
Linda in California.
Oh, wow.
Which generally you think.
(09:35):
The us, California, thehomeless, McDonald's and home of
fried crap, right?
Mm-hmm.
But this area is a blue zonebecause it's a haven for the
Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Yeah.
So they also have this set ofprinciples where, you know, on
the Sabbath is a day of restwhere they reflect and recharge.
And they get a lot of plantsand whole grains and nuts.
(09:59):
So they tend to live 10 yearslonger on average than the
general, resident in the usYeah.
Which is, you know, which can'tbe a coincidence.
No, it's not.
And last on the list is Ikaria.
Hope I'm saying that right.
It's in Greece.
Yes indeed.
You've got a lot of Greekfriends.
Hopefully they're listening.
(10:19):
Yeah.
And so there's a fierce senseof pride in their islands and,
that combined with late bedtimesoffset by daily naps.
That sounds good.
Ah, they have like a siestaYes.
And restricted adherence to theMediterranean diet.
So again, they eat lots offruit, veggies, beans, whole
(10:39):
grains, potatoes, and olive oil.
Means one in three Ikarianslive in, well into their
nineties, so Wow.
One in three.
That's pretty good, isn't it?
Cannot be a coincidence.
But I want to go back to yourconnection to the arts.
Karate Maori.
Yeah.
You, you have been a, what areyou, a black belts first Dan
(11:01):
First Dan yeah.
Yeah.
In Go Ju, which is atraditional Japanese.
Karate.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It's an interesting sport.
I don't know if it's a, yeah, Ireally, a sport.
It's probably a way of life,isn't it?
Yeah, I think it is.
Yeah.
I enjoy it.
It's, it's fun.
It's strenuous if you wannamake it.
Mm-hmm.
And, but it's, it's good foryou.
(11:22):
But there's so many people thatdo these martial arts, you
know, like when, I just noticedwhen I started doing it, you
know.
The celebrities and people ormusicians, like even Willie
Nelson.
Yeah.
Willie Nelson is something likea fifth damn black belt in
karate.
Yeah.
Right.
Like I just can't imagine thathe's got a joint in one hand and
(11:43):
he's in a sidekick with theother, like Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you, you and I went tosee with our lovely wives, went
to see Jason Alexander, right?
Oh yeah.
George from Seinfeld.
Yeah.
We went to see him live onstage and I mean.
The only reason you go to seeJason Alexander in concert, if
you like Yeah.
Or live, is for him to talkabout Seinfeld, Seinfeld and
(12:06):
George Stories.
Right.
It seemed to me was just tryingto show everybody he wasn't
George Costanza.
No, and and in fairness, he's aTony Award-winning actor and
all that stuff.
Yeah.
But he's awesome.
But, but for me, the funniestpart of the night was when he
started talking about martialarts.
Yeah.
'cause he's a, he's quite ahighly ranked That's Yeah.
(12:27):
In, in karate.
Yeah.
But when he was getting someoneup on stage, he was a big
fellow.
Wasn't that, he was a reallybig fell and he had a knife.
What?
He gave him a knife.
He kept saying, come at me.
Coming.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was, that was weird.
Yeah, it was very weird becausethe guy didn't wanna do it.
No.
Like he was coerced intogetting on stage and then as
(12:47):
soon as he came at him, he puthim on his backside.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it's, it's kind ofweird.
There's a whole bunch ofpeople.
Yeah.
Guy Richie, Jack Black.
Jack Black.
Jack Black, who was, well, yousee him do all those big kicks
and everything.
He's a weirdo.
He, he was doing that.
Someone, when he was on theGold Coast, someone was trying
to film him and he was.
(13:09):
He was doing all these kung fupanda.
Yeah, that's right.
Moves on him on the beach.
Yeah.
Which was just bizarre.
Yeah.
But, anyway, Robert Downey.
Una, yeah.
Yeah.
He's, well he does, there'slike a Chinese Kung fu type one.
Is it just, is it Wing, wingChun?
That's Wing, yeah.
Wing Chun.
Yeah.
Now President Barack Obama,easy for you to say.
(13:32):
He's a green belt.
Yeah.
I He's only a green belt.
Well, yeah, but you know, well,we'll, yeah.
We'll pass on him.
He's an honorary black belt.
There you go.
In TaeKwonDo.
But there you go.
So getting, he's a doctor.
He's a TaeKwonDo doctor.
Just give it to him.
Mick Jagger, big Mick.
He does judo, I think.
Yeah, he does.
(13:53):
He does.
Yeah.
Phil Mickelson, who's.
Not the, not the smallestgolfer on the tour.
Yeah.
But don't mess with him.
No, exactly.
Let him win.
Yeah.
So there's a whole bunch ofpeople who, practice this stuff
just as a way of life.
Yeah.
I mean, David Lee Roth.
Oh yeah, I get that.
'cause yeah, he was always intothe high kicks and all that
stuff.
Yeah, he was, wasn't he?
He was always parading rounds,throwing his legs around
(14:15):
everywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jim Carey.
Tommy Lee.
Tommy Lee.
Bloody hell.
Did Have you watched that Pamand Tommy series?
No, I haven't.
Oh, you need to watch it.
Is it good?
Is it It's really good.
I mean, the whole thing isbased on, you know, them making
the sex tape.
Okay.
And then, this guy sort of,Seth Rogan's in it is brilliant.
(14:38):
Yeah.
Seth Rogan's a tradie I likehim.
He's a Tradie.
Yeah.
Tommy won't pay him.
And Yeah.
You know, won't let him takehis tools away and stuff.
So he sort of breaks into thehouse to get his tools back and
finds the tape and Wow.
And that's how it sort ofhappens.
So, but Seth Rogan's awesome.
And the people at play, Pam andTommy are really good as well.
(14:59):
But it highlights that, TommyLee would want be a, you know, a
jujitsu master or something
Speaker (15:04):
Because it didn't paint
him in the most flattering
light.
Al (15:08):
So, so yeah, Elvis.
Oh, the king.
Yes.
He used to do all that stuff onstage, you know, long fighting
stands and, and thrown his armsaround and kicking and yeah, he
took pretty seriously in the bigElvis suit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, there's a story that Iheard of, Alice Cooper.
Mm-hmm.
Elvis invited him to theGracelands with a couple other
(15:31):
people.
I think it was Chubby Checkerand, the lady from Cabaret,
what's her name?
Oh, Peter Liza Minelli.
Liza Minelli, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it was those three.
Don't, it's not written instone.
But anyway, he's.
He's got there.
And he'd never met Elvisbefore, and he was invited there
by Elvis.
So he's, he's rocked in.
And he said it was just Elviswas Elvis.
(15:51):
Mm-hmm.
And he said he was in thekitchen chatting to him, and he
pulled his drawer out and therewas a, you know, revolver there.
And he said, point the revolverat me.
This is Elvis saying to, AliceCooper point the revolver at me.
So he does, he points therevolver at me.
He says, no sooner he pointedhis revolver.
Here he is on the ground with afoot on his head.
And he said, that's the way youdisarm someone who's pointing a
(16:15):
gun at you.
Oh man.
Taken down by the king.
It was great.
The way, Alice Cooper explainedit.
Oh, it was, it was just so goodthe way he explained it.
Better to be taken down byElvis than, yeah.
Than George.
Yeah.
Hey, I've got an Elvis storyfor you just because, this is
quite bizarre.
Mm-hmm.
So 1957, he recorded whiteChristmas, right?
(16:38):
Yeah.
And apparently at the time itwas seen as the start of moral
decay.
So Irving Berlin, who wrote thething, just he wanted the whole
thing banned.
Frank Sinatra hated it.
'cause Elvis was all aboutshaking the hips and Yeah.
Uhhuh and all that stuff.
There's a really big move tohave it banned from being played
(16:58):
on the radio.
And apparently, you know, dwhat, Christmas?
Yeah.
With only because Elvis wassinging, because it was Elvis
singing it.
It was described at the time asbeing the equivalent of having
a stripper, giving Christmaspresents to your kids.
Whoa, I didn't know that.
I, yeah, it's bizarre, isn'tit?
Like when you.
But he did that big Christmasspecial.
(17:20):
Let's talk about music now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what's offensive?
Yeah.
Holy.
No.
But he did that Christmasspecial that right at the end of
his career.
Yeah.
And he refused to sing.
I can't remember what song itwas.
Yeah.
It was a real Christmasclassic.
And he ended up writing a song.
Yeah.
And it was an awesome song.
(17:41):
Yeah.
Did you see the movie, theElvis Presley movie?
Yeah, did you remember that bitin it?
Yeah.
Who was the guy in it?
Speaker (17:47):
Austin Butler.
He was great.
Al (17:48):
Yeah.
It was a really good movie.
Yeah.
But the, the whole, yeah.
And he, so he sings this songthat he wrote overnight.
Mm-hmm.
It was just brilliant.
Speaker (18:05):
Mark.
One of the things that mostpeople like to talk about, and I
know we are no different, istoys from their childhood.
Everyone.
Everyone says, oh yeah, no,it's not as good as when we were
kids.
Right?
Yeah, that's right.
But it's only when you lookback at stuff and you go far
out.
That was dangerous.
That was seriously dangerous.
(18:26):
Right.
And even, even if you just lookat.
Toys or even exercise equipmentthat involve springs.
Yeah.
So if you look at Yeah, Iremember the old CHE span.
Yeah, the three spring.
Yeah.
Or the, or trampolines.
Yeah.
Which famously, you know, yeah.
rowing machines and all thatstuff.
Like any exercise equipmentwith springs in, it was pretty
(18:48):
well just lethal a trip to theemergency department, yeah.
But everybody had thosesprings, the three spring chest.
Oh yeah.
But it got me thinking aboutsome of the most dangerous toys.
And when you look online at aproduct called, they've got a
few different names, but I thinkin Australia we called them
Click Clacks.
(19:09):
Yeah, click clacks.
Click clacks.
For those people who don't knowthem, basically it was, it was
like a plastic tag.
It had two pieces of stringattached to it, and on the end
of each piece of string was areally hard ball.
It was probably bigger than agolf ball.
It was probably round about thesize of a golf ball, I reckon.
Yeah.
If not smaller, but yeah.
I don't know, but, but reallyhard.
(19:30):
Yeah.
Key thing is.
In order to use theclick-clack, what you had to do
was sort of use this wristaction so that the ball would
hit at the top, the bottom andthe bottom.
Make this click-clack sound.
Yeah.
And the only way that thatcrazy game stopped was when one
of the balls didn't connectproperly and it meant it would
run into your wrist.
Right?
Yeah.
(19:50):
And so it, it bruised yourwrist.
Oh man.
So famously, I think.
There were so many people thatended up with broken wrists from
using them, they became bannedworldwide.
Yeah.
There's, there's sort of beenversions that have come out
since, but they're nowhere nearas No.
With the, with the solid.
The solid, yeah.
(20:11):
So you can't get your wristright.
I actually, I actually, um,there was a thing on the radio
on four BC and I dunno, Iprobably was about 12.
Uh, and I rang up and I won aset of click clicks and I went
into the city up to the four BCstation and picked up my click
clacks.
And Wow.
(20:31):
I was a legend at school and,and everyone seemed to have
wrists that had like bones putshooting.
Must have big bruises.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's click lax.
So that's click lax.
I reckon bring them back.
Yeah.
Why not bloody kids these days?
The other one, and this is aproduct that has come and gone
(20:51):
over the years, but it's slipand slide.
Oh.
And again, slip and slide is along plastic mat that the hose
plugs into.
You have sort of a sprinkle ofwater, you know, spraying on it
all the time.
Spray fine Water.
Yeah.
And you could grease it up.
So put it on the hills.
Even better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But the problem with them, ofcourse, was they were made for
(21:13):
kids like 12 and underwriting,not for, not for 20-year-old
drunks or 45-year-old drunks.
They weren't made for the drunkuncle on Christmas day, I can
tell you.
So consequently, when peoplewere supposed to stop, they
didn't, so they ended up runninginto, you know, fences or cars
or roads or whatever.
Yeah.
again, just a classic piece ofwhat were they thinking?
Yeah.
Pulled should, you know,dislocated shoulders and Oh,
(21:36):
totally broken arms.
Yeah, because you're running upand diving at speed, yeah.
Sunday afternoon party atsomeone's house and the kids get
out, get out and having a goodtime.
Then suddenly Uncle Fredreckons he's still got it in him
and off he goes.
'cause he's had half a carton.
But, you know, at, at the riskof sounding like old blokes who
are looking back fondly on theirchildhood.
(21:56):
But we will just for a moment,I mean, I, I seem to remember.
You know, doing handstands onskateboards and scraping
knuckles and you know, all thatstuff, and you're just, like
that doing jumps on.
You drags the pushbike.
Well, you are a lunatic, right?
You've, you've got so manystories about that.
There's some crazy things that,that, that happened.
Like there was this trike.
(22:16):
I remember the kid across theroad had a trike.
One was meant for kids probablyaround the age of five and
three.
So the 3-year-old sat in theback and the 5-year-old sat on
the front part and pedalled, andit was cute, but put it on a,
on a straight street going downlike a probably and get stand in
the back part.
And then hang onto thehandlebars with no breaks.
(22:38):
No, no breaks, and it's justflying.
And when he, this, this youngfella, David did it and we
watched him and we were justroaring laughing, not realizing
that he could have died.
And when he's hit the gutter atthe bottom, he's just become
airborne and gone straightthrough this hedge and down in
embankment.
But he could have worked.
That was.
That was probably the, the bestscenario that could have
(22:58):
happened.
You know, it's all downhillfrom there.
Yeah.
Holy dooley.
He could have killed himselfeasily.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good times.
It is.
Yeah.
So, I don't know, bring backthe tricycle slip and slide and
the click claps.
I say do 'em all at the sametime.
Oh.
Dream come true Okay.
(23:27):
That's about it for thisepisode.
But don't forget if you wannaget in touch or if you've got
any topics you'd like us tocover off, then drop us an email
at Fun Facts andsidetracks@gmail.com and we'll
catch you next time.
We certainly will.