"Five Minutes of Fire": Joe DiMaggio, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon

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