Matt Hubbard felt pretty strongly about Hal David, and so he wrote us an update. Lovely piece. Eternity Tours, The Wiz and Where's my damn list get three points. Two for the hit, one for the trio.

* * *

Hal David and Burt Bacharach were an odd couple.

Burt had sex appeal, completely aside from his remarkable musical talent. Before he makes his fame as a composer, he's the arranger and conductor for Marlene Dietrich. In that part of show business, that's starting at the top. You think being good-looking didn't help? Please. He's not a movie star, but he did marry Angie Dickinson. That takes some doing.

If Don Draper were real, he might look at Burt Bacharach and think, "How come some bastards are so damn lucky?"

But Hal David. Well, he looks like an insurance salesman. He looks like a Midwest regional manager of a department store chain. He's older than Bacharach, but that makes no nevermind. He was never as pretty.

It doesn't matter a fig. They were genius together.

I've read the sheet music. More accurately, I've followed the chord progressions on songs I've heard a million times on the radio. Bacharach throws in extra beats all over the place. The legend is that some of his pieces had to be played by music majors from UCLA and USC because studio musicians just couldn't get the rhythms.

But then there's the lyrics. The lyrics are perfect for the tone. Bacharach worked with other people, but it was never really the same. Carole Bayer Sager just wasn't as good. Elvis Costello, whom I love, makes lyric writing sound difficult. Hal David made it sound easy.

A lyric never sounds as good without the melody. But if you are of a certain age, reading a few lines of Hal David's lyrics brings the melody to mind, even before the title is reached.

	Anyone who had a love Could look at me And know that I love you Anyone who had a dream Could look at me And know I dream of you ... Knowing I love you Stop! --------- The moment I wake up Before I put on my makeup --------- If you see me walking down the street And I start to cry, each time we meet ... --------- Spread your wings For New Orleans Kentucky bluebird Fly ... away.

The big hit versions of all the songs I just started were sung by Dionne Warwick, but Bacharach/David wrote hits for a lot of people. "Wives and Lovers" for Jack Jones. "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" for Gene Pitney. "The Look of Love" for Dusty Springfield, "What's New, Pussycat?" for Tom Jones, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" for B.J. Thomas.

They could do bombastic, they could do cheerful. Love could break your heart or be all that is good in life.

Technically, Bacharach and David show up a little late to be in The Great American Songbook, but that's just an arbitrary cut-off based mostly on time and a preference for Broadway show tunes. When counting the great pop songs of my lifetime, so many of them were written by these guys. Do you remember "The April Fools"? Or "Trains and Boats and Planes"? Dusty singing "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself"?

These are great songs, and I'm not sure any of them would make my top ten of Bacharach/David hits. Off the top of my head...

	1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.		Anyone Who Had a Heart I Say a Little Prayer Walk On By Message to Michael Alfie The Look of Love My Little Red Book Always Something There to Remind Me I'll Never Fall in Love Again This Guy's in Love with You

I'm sure I've forgotten a dozen that belong here, too.

There's no question the melodies and arrangements are great, and that's the work of Burt Bacharach. But the lyrics fit so well, so simply in some very complex music. That was the work of Hal David, the guy who looked like an insurance salesman. His was a talent that I, for one, will treasure all my days. The sixties wouldn't have been the same without them.

— Matthew Hubbard

A Bill Schenley special.

* * *

When Art Modell bought the Cleveland Browns in 1961, he promised to restore championship seasons to what was then one of the most storied franchises in the NFL. And then he fired Paul Brown. This was an omen for Browns fans. Cleveland won the NFL Championship in '64 with a team drafted by Paul Brown, and then it never won again. Oh, I forgot — the Browns did win again, in 2000. Unfortunately for the Browns faithful, by that time the team was located in Baltimore.

Thus Art Modell became the most hated figure in Cleveland sports history. He surpassed the blind hatred for both Carl Mays and Gil McDougald of the New York Yankees. The utter contempt for former Indians general manager Frank Lane. The disdain in which Ted Stepien and Larry Dolan are held. Jose Mesa, Albert Don't-Call-Me-Joey Belle are both despised in The Mistake on the Lake, but even Ricky Davis and LeBron James are small-time dislike compared to how the northeast corner of Ohio feels about Art Modell. Cleveland fans rooted for the Browns every Sunday, no matter how bad the team was. And on that same day, that Christian day of worship, those same fans rooted for Modell's plane to crash, killing him and his entire family. "Stop the Seed," they implored to their god. In Brooklyn, more than a half-century later, Dodgers fans still hate the O'Malley family. In Cleveland, Browns fans will need a millennium to forget Art Modell.

And now, as the late Mr. Modell heads to the Eighth Level of Hell where he will join Robert Irsay, he stopped briefly at the Third Level to say a quick hello to Horace Stoneham, and at the Seventh Level to nod towards Walter O'Malley. Exuma, Jazz Vulture and Loki are wildly cheering from the sidelines. This bastard's death is worth five points to them, with an extra bonus point. Total: 6.

— Bill Schenley

Turhan Bey's main problem was that his name made him sound like an exotic Arab from some country you never heard of. Then there were the jokes about how Turhan Bey was located right off Veronica Lake. Turhan was actually a half-Jewish kid from Vienna who had an exotic look that drew some initial attention. Warner Bros. told Turhan he could act, and he believed them, so he signed a contract. Turhan was billed as "The Turkish Delight" and found himself routinely cast as an Arab or a Hindu. In 1944, one of those tarted-up Stars of Tomorrow polls had Turhan at number 9 on its list. Of course that meant Turhan's career was doomed, and he was pretty much done with movies only five years later. After 1949 he managed only a single film, Sam Katzman's 1953 flick Prisoners of the Casbah, one of those awful Ali Baba movies that makes no sense at all.

Turhan returned to Vienna and became a successful fashion photographer. Then, in 1993, somebody remembered Turhan and cast him in an episode of a series called SeaQuest DSV, which was about people on a submarine who do routine submarine stuff such as talk to aliens and travel through time. It was Turhan's first acting gig in a long while, and casting directors — having discovered to their surprise that Turhan was still alive — threw him a bone every once in a while. Inevitably, Turhan did an episode of Murder, She Wrote. He also appeared twice in the sf series Babylon 5, the first time as the Emperor Turhan. (That must have been a real stretch.)

Turhan was done in Hollywood — again — after 2000, and he returned once more to Vienna. His native Austria remained proud of him. There was a German-language television documentary in 2002 about Turhan's life and career. Its title, in English, was The Pursuit of Happiness: From Vienna to Hollywood and Back. I hope he managed to catch some along the way.

Garrett catches seven points for this hit from old Hollywood: two points for age and five for the solo.

— Brad