"Five Minutes of Fire": Mafia, Hula Hoops, Castro

<v Speaker 1>Hi, this is David Means and you're listening to the
<v Speaker 1>Shirley You Can't Be Serious Podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome
<v Speaker 1>back to the Shirley you Can't Be Serious Podcast, Special
<v Speaker 1>Edition five Minutes of Fire. We are here talking about
<v Speaker 1>the lyrics of We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel.
<v Speaker 1>We're covering only five minutes at a time, which is
<v Speaker 1>about to link with the song, so it works out
<v Speaker 1>kind of nicely. So please join us as we dive
<v Speaker 1>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. Mafia, hula hoops, castro.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Jason, what is the mafia?
<v Speaker 2>Okay? So this has to be the story surrounding the
<v Speaker 2>nineteen fifty nine LaCOSA Nostra mob boss Vito Gena vs.
<v Speaker 2>This guy was convicted of conspiracy to violate narcotics law
<v Speaker 2>and sendenced to fifteen years in prison nineteen fifty nine.
<v Speaker 2>GENOVC was one of these guys that would continue to
<v Speaker 2>operate his organized crime group from prison. Genovs rose to
<v Speaker 2>power during prohibition as an enforcer. Genovs and his associate
<v Speaker 2>Lucky Luciano took part in the Castillo Marisi War, which
<v Speaker 2>was the war for the control of New York and
<v Speaker 2>it helped shape the rise of the mafia and organized
<v Speaker 2>crime in the United States. He also helped expand the
<v Speaker 2>heroin trade internationally. This is a tale of blood murder, cash, drugs,
<v Speaker 2>mob hits. The works got of a heart attack, Springfield,
<v Speaker 2>Missouri Prison, nineteen sixty nine.
<v Speaker 1>You what can you tell me about hula hoops? Okay, Jason? So,
<v Speaker 1>as it turns out, hoops have been used by children
<v Speaker 1>as toys for hundreds of years, dating back to five
<v Speaker 1>hundred BC in Greece. Wow. But something happened in the
<v Speaker 1>fifties that brought them to a new light. It turns
<v Speaker 1>out that there were a couple of Americans driving through Australia.
<v Speaker 1>They happened to see these children laying with hoops, Except
<v Speaker 1>they weren't rolling on on the ground, which was the
<v Speaker 1>normal use for the hoops. They were spinning them around
<v Speaker 1>their waist. There was an Australian teacher who had given
<v Speaker 1>the kids a game to try to keep the hoops
<v Speaker 1>from falling to the ground as a way of exercise. Eventually,
<v Speaker 1>this idea got to Wammo, the toy company and of
<v Speaker 1>course they weren't the only ones who were trying to
<v Speaker 1>develop the hoop, but the bamboo hoops were selling out
<v Speaker 1>in Australia, so they realized, hey, we should try to
<v Speaker 1>make these out of plastic. It's more readily available. They
<v Speaker 1>did that. Several other game companies tried to do the
<v Speaker 1>same thing, but it really came down to who had
<v Speaker 1>the best name as to which of these hoops took off.
<v Speaker 1>And because it looked like the children were doing the hula,
<v Speaker 1>the Hawaiian dance whenever they would spend these hoops, they
<v Speaker 1>gave it the name Hula hoop, and Whammo won that contest.
<v Speaker 1>They became a huge fad in nineteen fifty nine, continued
<v Speaker 1>to be a fad on through the seventies, kind of
<v Speaker 1>died out by nineteen eighty. But there's I have hula
<v Speaker 1>hoops at my house that my kids use. Hi.
<v Speaker 2>We had huloops for sure.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Okay, tell me about Castro.
<v Speaker 2>Okay. Feedale Castro was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who
<v Speaker 2>was the leader of Cuba from nineteen fifty nine to
<v Speaker 2>two thousand and eight. That takes us from the Eisenhower
<v Speaker 2>administration through GW. Bush pretty incredible, served as Prime Minister
<v Speaker 2>of Cuba from nineteen fifty nine to nineteen seventy six,
<v Speaker 2>sort of self appointed him President of Cuba from nineteen
<v Speaker 2>seventy six to two thousand and eight. Known for his
<v Speaker 2>famous beard, his cigar, and his baseball pitches.
<v Speaker 1>I thought you were going to say his army uniform.
<v Speaker 1>I did not know that he was famous for his
<v Speaker 1>baseball pitch.
<v Speaker 2>He was almost drafted as a Major League baseball pitcher.
<v Speaker 2>How the world would have changed if that would have happened.
<v Speaker 2>Originally seen as a hero for overthrowing the dictator Battista,
<v Speaker 2>he was actually interviewed by Ed Sullivan. Few people have
<v Speaker 2>been as idolized or as hated as Fidel Castro. In
<v Speaker 2>October nineteen sixty two, Soviet missiles were brought to Cuba,
<v Speaker 2>creating the Cuban Missile Crisis, which put US close to
<v Speaker 2>World War three. The US put an economic embargo on him,
<v Speaker 2>but Castro did manage to provide health care and education
<v Speaker 2>to his entire country. His opponents saw that though as
<v Speaker 2>Cuba sort of being an island prison, the economy is terrible.
<v Speaker 2>He left office in two thousand and eight, and he
<v Speaker 2>died in twenty sixteen at the age of ninety.
<v Speaker 1>I'm just glad we've got Pin cigars again. Okay, guys,
<v Speaker 1>that does it for today's episode. Join us next time
<v Speaker 1>for five minutes of fire.