Fun Facts for the New Year

Happy New Year! Recently an afternoon spent Googling around brought me to Buzzfeed.com's "36 Interesting Facts That Will Make You Want to Travel". Some of these are more interesting/relevant than others, but all proved worth a read as I find my stride in the New Year and start thinking about really getting 1/48/50 to happen.  Enjoy, and best wishes in 2018!

1. Travel can help improve your problem-solving skills. 

2. One out of eight jobs in the U.S. depends on travel and tourism.

3. Studies show that money spent on travel makes you happier than money spent on material goods. 

4. Taking a vacation can lower your risk of heart disease.

5. Benefits of travels are almost immediate. After a day or two, 89% of people experience significant drops in stress.

6. Travel has been shown to help aid those suffering from depression.

7. Travel promotes overall brain health.

8. Couples who travel together report increase feelings of intimacy.

9. The U.S. is the only developed country in the world without a single legally required paid vacation day or holiday.

10: Austrians are said to have the most vacation time of any country. Austria guarantees its workers a legal minimum of 22 paid vacation days and 13 paid holidays each year.

11. Travel can make you more creative.

12. Travel can also make you smarter.

13. France is the most visited country in the world.

14. The most visited city, according to 2013 data: Bangkok.

15. Honolulu is the only U.S. city that has a royal palace.

16. Canada has the most lakes of any country in the world.

17. France has the most time zones of any country in the world. 

18. Mongolia is the least densely populated place in the world. There are just four people per square mile.  

19. Russia produces the most oxygen of any country in the world.

20. Niger has the youngest population of any country.

21. India is consider the most diverse population in the world.

22. Monaco is smaller than NYC's Central Park.

23. Papa New Guinea has the largest number of languages spoken.

24. Canada has the most educated population in the world, with 50% of its population being educated at the post-secondary level.

25. 99% of Libya is desert.

26. The U.S. has the highest number of citizens behind bars.

27. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport is the world's busiest.

28.There are 61,000 people in the air over the U.S. on any given day.

29. That's probably because 1/3 of the world's airports are located in the U.S.

30. The San Alfonso del Mar resort in Chile has the world's largest swimming pool. It holds 66 million gallons.

31. Las Vegas has the most hotel rooms of any city in the world.

32. The shortest airline flight available for purchase lasts two minutes and runs from the Scottish island of Westray to Papa Westray.

33. The longest flight in the world is from Sydney, Australia to Dallas, Texas. It lasts about 16 hours and covers approximately 8,500 miles.

34. All the money tossed into Rome's Trevi Fountain is collected each night and donated to multiple charities.

35. The largest hotel in the world is Russia's Izmailovo. It could accommodate 7,500 guests.

36. The world's most expensive hotel is the Royal Penthouse Suite at the Hotel Wilson in Geneva. $83,200 per night.

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#274) "Tin Man" by America - When I was younger, I didn't like "Tin Man", primarily because I didn't get it. I should have, maybe. Being the writer dude/self styled intellectual I worked oh so hard to convince the world (and myself) I was, I should have totally been down with the stream-of-consciousness headiness of the vibe, and up to the challenge of its poetically inscrutable lyrics.

But alas, it was all too much for me to wrap my head around...because - I think - it was just so fucking awesome...actual poetry, as opposed to merely overwrought and heavily cliched imagery. Or maybe it's just complete nonsense. Honestly, that would be okay too.

And I definitely wasn't mature enough then to appreciate the artistry of America's collective musicianship. Dewey Bunnell wrote "Tin Man", but like many of America's songs, it's the other two members, Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley, joining in that helps create the unforgettable sound that, as I've said in the past, is on one hand helplessly dated to the 1970s, yet beautifully timeless at the same time.

Now as a full-fledged adult, I still don't know what the hell the song is saying, I just love it. Love me some America, man. I feel like there's important stuff - heady and just a little horrifying - going on in their music, both lyrically and melodically, and yet, nothing at all at the same time. Maybe more than any other band or artist, America should be brought along on a cross-country road trip. 

"But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't, didn't already have..."

#275) "A Horse With No Name" by America - See above.

"The ocean is a desert with its life underground and a perfect disguise above..."

#276) "Lonely People" by America  - And again. Although the lyrics are more straightforward in this one, it's still just pleasant to listen to.

"Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup / you never know until you try..."

The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#64) "Wango Tango" by Ted Nugent - Take away his brashness and over-the-top political views (or who knows, maybe keep them right in place) and Ted Nugent is undeniably one of the greatest rock and roll musicians of all time. A killer, killer axe grinder, he rose to fame in the 1970s by forging a unique brand of rock and roll, louder and more obnoxious than ever; not a 'wall of sound', more a shriek from the end of the alley, or the edge of the woods, but always with just a little humor folded in. This somehow allowed him to swagger across the stage dressed like Tarzan without detracting from his legitimacy, and to everyone's shock, without the need for - or distraction of - drugs and alcohol.

Wango Tango is an awful song that I love listening to. No better representation of the Motor City Madman probably exists, and for my money it possesses all the requisite ingredients for a basic rock and roll stew: loudness, sexually charged energy, blistering guitar licks, and yet just a splash of spazzy, because rock and roll should never, ever take itself so seriously it can't climb up on a buffalo once in a while.

Ted Nugent has always realized this, and if people realized that he realizes this, they might not be quite as outraged by the outrageous things he says.

Er, maybe they would anyway...but in any case, Wango Tango tears it up.

"My baby like to rock, my baby like to roll / my baby like to dance all night, she got no control..."

#65) "Chevy Van" by Sammy Johns - I firmly believe everyone needs a little Uncle Ted in their lives, but I'll be the first to admit he's not what I want the most of along with me on 1/48/50. 

The vibe of this trip will revolve more tightly around the likes of Chevy Van. This is another of those songs that resides inside a singular emotional moment. It's ultimately just an anecdote of a chance encounter, some version of which happens every single day somewhere, the kind of thing that for most people makes life worth living, at some point in that life at least.

But Chevy Van captures a special point in American history. The fact that these days this song - or this type of song - would be lucky to draw four people to Room 103 of the county annex out on Highway H for a Tuesday night performance, much less reach #5 on the Billboard Top 100 (as it did in 1973), is unfortunate, to say the least. 

Makes me think we lost something along the way.

"I put her out in a town that was so small / you could throw a rock from end to end..."

#66) "Ventura Highway" by America - One of my favorite songs of all time: gorgeous instrumentation, complex rhythm, wildly inscrutable lyrics that don't have to mean anything, but mean everything. Ventura Highway isn't a place, or a road...man...it's a state of mind.

America vocalist and writer Dewey Bunnell has said he considers Ventura Highway his most enduring song; or so he was quoted on Wikipedia. But I have no reason not to accept it. This isn't a college paper I'm writing here, and if he doesn't think it, he damn well should. For all it's acoustic AM Gold vibe, Ventura Highway really is pretty timeless. Listening to it always makes my day, no matter how roughly that day has unfolded.

"This town don't look good in snow..."

#67) "Sister Golden Hair" by America - Another graceful beauty by America, Sister Golden Hair isn't quite so timeless. In fact, if any song smells the most like 1975, I'd say it's this one. But like Chevy Van, the song movingly captures the sadness of the post-60s/pre-80s era in a suitably introspective way.

'Sadness' isn't even quite the word; anxious, maybe, but not overwrought. Melancholy. The 70s were a lull between what was and what would be in this country, a kind of psychological nexus, and although I was only a young child at the time, the afternoon sunshine dripping down the kitchen walls from the window above the sink, I think, sounded a lot like this.

"I ain't ready for the altar, but I do agree there's times / when a woman sure can be a friend of mine..."