Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely You Can't
Be Serious Podcast Special Edition five Minutes of Fire. We're
here talking about the lyrics of We Didn't Start the
Fire by Billy Joel. We're covering only five minutes at
a time, which is about to lengthen the song, so
it works out kind of nicely. So please join us
as we dive into some new lyrics today.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, so here are the topics that we're
going to be covering today. We've got Joe Demagio.
Speaker 1: Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon.
Speaker 2: Part one Jomaggio, Joe mccaffee.
Speaker 1: Richard, Missus Jason, what can you tell me about Joe Demaggio.
Speaker 2: Joe Demagio number five started out his rookie year is
number nine. Most people don't know that. Also known as Joelton,
Joe Yankee Clipper Joe Dee played all thirteen years as
the Yankee center fielder.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Missus Robinson because of Doris Day. Missus Robinson
the song they mentioned Jolten. Joe is left and Gone away.
Speaker 2: And known for being a nine time World Series champ.
The only person who has more Yogi berra He's got ten,
especially known for his fifty six game hitting streak, which
most people believe that is unbreakable. Nobody over touched it ever. Again,
it's incredible. Three time AL MVP, two time batting champ,
two time home run leader, two time RBI leader. I mean,
we're talking about the Yankees set the franchise record for
thirty six home runs as a rookie.
Speaker 1: So he's a baseball player.
Speaker 2: Didnight I say he was a baseball player. I'm sorry.
I'm familiar with him, so I just figured everybody else was.
Most people don't realize this. He would have likely had
many more awards, accolades, World Series rings if not for
military service right in the middle of his prime. He
went to war from nineteen forty three February of nineteen
forty three to September of nineteen forty five. His first
wife was an actress. Her name was Dorothy Arnold. I
sent you a picture of her yesterday.
Speaker 1: She looks like Madonna, she does.
Speaker 2: His second wife, though very well known, Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 1: That one lasted all of nine months.
Speaker 2: Eight months, okay, but they rekindled later in life, and
many people thought they were on their way to going
back together and when he died, his dying words were
on my way to see Maryland.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: In pop culture, you may have heard him referred to
on Looney Tunes Daddy Screaming, a Porky going steal Home.
Debasio Simon and Garfunkal mentioned him and Missus Robinson as
you said. Bon Jovi mentions him, and Captain Crash and
the Beauty Queen from Mars. Madonna mentions him in Vogue,
and John Fogerty mentions him in the song of Course
center Field. All right, Dee, what do you know about
Joe McCarthy.
Speaker 1: Okay? Joe McCarthy was a Republican Senator from Wisconsin. He
was elected in nineteen forty seven, but his claimed fame
happens in February of nineteen fifty. This is our first
guy from nineteen fifty. We've had all the forty nine
s now to fifty. He comes out, has in his
hand that he never shows to anybody, has a list
in his hand and says, I have a list of
Communist Party members and Soviet spies who are employed by
the State Department, and starts what is one of the
biggest what they would call witch hunts in history, trying
to accuse and prosecute anybody he can of being a
Kami or a Soviet spy or a Soviet sympathizer. He
said they had infiltrated the federal government, they had infiltrated universities,
the film industry, all kinds of stuff. Now it was
really hot and heavy, and he was the star of
the hour. This is the guy. This is the original
cancel culture right here. Like if you were in Hollywood
and you were accused of being a communist and couldn't
refute it, you got lacklisted or worse. But his doings
led to the term McCarthyism, which also occurred in nineteen fifty.
At first it meant anti communist. Now it means a
reckless and unstable accusation. By nineteen fifty four, though his
popularity had seriously plummeted, he was involved in a big
battle with the army. It was the Army McCarthy hearings,
because the army had said he had tried to use
his power to do inappropriate things with the army. And
then there was a senator named Lester C. Hunt. His
son had gotten caught propositioning, and a male undercover officer,
which normally would have been kind of swept under the rug,
but McCarthy got word of this used it to pressure
him to not run for reelection, and the senator said,
I will not run for reelection and then blew his
brains out in his office. Joe McCarthy was not the
star anymore after that, and just three years later, nineteen
fifty seven, he went to the hospital and dropped dead
of what was called acute hepatitis, but probably he drank
himself to death.
Speaker 2: Wow, what can you tell us about the first round
with Richard Nixon?
Speaker 1: So Richard Nixon was a member of the House of
Representatives at the same time. He was from California, but
he became involved in the trial of Alger Hisss. Alger
Hisss was a guy who had helped Charter the UN
was a member of the UN but he had been
accused of being a member of the Communist Party and
a Communist spy, and Nixon was the guy who presented
the evidence that helped prove him guilty. In nineteen fifty
this advanced Nixon's political career and he soon ran for
the Senate and won, and then he later became the
Vice President under Dwight D. Eisenhower and then later he
would become president too, but we will have to save
that story for a different day. Okay, guys, that does
it for today's episode. Join us next time for five
minutes of fire.