IN: Javier Pedro Saviola Fernandez (Spanish pronunciation: [xa'bjer 'pedro sa'bjola fer'nandes]; born 11 December 1981) is a retired Argentine professional footballer who played as a forward. Known for his speed, dribbling and ability to score from almost any attacking position on the field, he represented both Barcelona and Real Madrid and was named as the youngest player on Pele's FIFA 100 list of the 125 greatest living footballers in 2004. Due to his ancestry he also holds Spanish nationality since 2004, and he amassed La Liga totals of 196 games and 70 goals over the course of eight seasons; he started and finished his career at River Plate. An Argentine international for seven years, Saviola represented his country at the 2006 World Cup and the 2004 Copa America, where his team reached the final.

In 2001, aged 19, Saviola moved abroad to play for FC Barcelona in a PS15 million transfer. He obtained Spanish citizenship shortly after, thereby not being restricted by the Spanish league maximum on the number of non-European Union citizens allowed in each club. Under coach Carles Rexach, he scored 17 goals in his first season, finishing joint-fourth top scorer in La Liga. Saviola's second year at the club did not start well, as he only scored two goals in the first half of the season. When Van Gaal was fired and Radomir Antic became the new Barcelona manager, he went on to net 11 goals in the latter half of the campaign; at the start of the following season Frank Rijkaard was appointed as new manager, and the player scored 14 times in the league alone, but was deemed surplus at the club as longtime offensive partner Patrick Kluivert. Saviola was sent on loan in the summer of 2004, moving to AS Monaco FC in Ligue 1. As he did not fit into Rijkaard's plans he was again loaned out the following year, this time to Spanish club Sevilla FC, in order to replace Real Madrid-bound Julio Baptista; with his new club he won his first title in Europe, conquering the UEFA Cup -- he also scored nine times in the league, good enough for fifth. Saviola returned to Barcelona for the 2006-07 season, playing in 18 league games, six as a starter, and netting five goals. He benefited greatly from injuries to teammates, most notably to Samuel Eto'o, and added five in as many matches in that season's Copa del Rey, notably a hat-trick against Deportivo Alaves (3-2 win at home, 5-2 aggregate).
QUESTION: Did his playing eventually improve?
IN: "Ode to Billie Joe" is a 1967 song written and recorded by Bobbie Gentry, a singer-songwriter from Chickasaw County, Mississippi. The single, released in late July, was a number-one hit in the United States, and became a big international seller. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 3 song for 1967 (the other two were #2 "The Letter" by the Box Tops and #1 "To Sir With Love" by Lulu). The song is ranked #412 on Rolling Stone's list of "the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" and at #144 in Pitchfork's 200 Best Songs of the 1960s.

Questions arose among listeners: what did Billie Joe and his girlfriend throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge, and why did Billie Joe commit suicide? Speculation ran rampant after the song hit the airwaves. Gentry said in a November 1967 interview that it was the question most asked of her by everyone she met. She named flowers, an engagement ring, a draft card, a bottle of LSD pills, and an aborted baby as the most often guessed items. Although she knew definitely what the item was, she would not reveal it, saying only "Suppose it was a wedding ring." "It's in there for two reasons," she said. "First, it locks up a definite relationship between Billie Joe and the girl telling the story, the girl at the table. Second, the fact that Billie Joe was seen throwing something off the bridge - no matter what it was - provides a possible motivation as to why he jumped off the bridge the next day." When Herman Raucher met Gentry in preparation for writing a novel and screenplay based on the song, she said that she had no idea why Billie Joe killed himself. Gentry has, however, commented elsewhere on the song, saying that its real theme was indifference: Those questions are of secondary importance in my mind. The story of Billie Joe has two more interesting underlying themes. First, the illustration of a group of people's reactions to the life and death of Billie Joe, and its subsequent effect on their lives, is made. Second, the obvious gap between the girl and her mother is shown when both women experience a common loss (first Billie Joe, and later, Papa), and yet Mama and the girl are unable to recognize their mutual loss or share their grief. The bridge mentioned in this song collapsed in June 1972. It crossed the Tallahatchie River at Money, about ten miles (16 km) north of Greenwood, Mississippi, and has since been replaced. The November 10, 1967, issue of Life Magazine contained a photo of Gentry crossing the original bridge.
QUESTION: did billie joe have any input?
IN: Criss Angel was born on December 19, 1967, at Hempstead General Hospital in Hempstead, on Long Island, New York. He is of Greek descent. Angel was raised in Elmont until fourth grade, when his family moved to East Meadow, New York. His father, John Sarantakos, owned a restaurant and doughnut shop.

Angel has said that, "I stayed away from magicians when I was younger because I didn't want to think like them and wanted to create my own style." His first television appearance was in 1994, where he performed as a part of a one-hour ABC primetime special entitled Secrets. One of the early supporters of Angel was horror director Clive Barker. In 1995, Barker asked Angel to work with him on his film Lord of Illusions. He also later recorded the intro to Angel's album World of Illusion: System One. Barker said of Angel in the mid-1990s that, "Criss Angel is extraordinary, a spectacular mix of visionary magic. This is the future, and it can't come quickly enough." During that year, he collaborated with musician Klayton to form Angeldust, a show that combined magic with music. They released their first album Musical Conjurings from the World of Conjuring in 1998. Also that year, Angel performed a ten-minute show over the course of the "World of Illusion" conference in Madison Square Garden, performing sixty shows per day. However, by 2000, Klayton's name was removed from Angel's website. Angel also starred in the 1997 television movie The Science of Magic and its 2003 sequel The Science of Magic II. Criss Angel Mindfreak, which would later become Angel's first television series, was originally an off-Broadway show by Angel, which in 2001 was picked up by the World Underground Theatre. When not performing the show, Angel worked the streets promoting the show to pedestrians. Criss Angel Mindfreak ran for more than 600 performances between 2001 and 2003 at the World Underground Theater in Times Square. His twenty-four hours in a tank of water set a world record for the longest amount of time for a human to be completely submerged under water. This performance would also become a part of his first television special. Angel has also been known to actively discourage a belief in mediumship, stating that there is no way for mediums to speak with people beyond the dead. He has said, "If somebody's doing that for entertainment purposes, that's one thing. But if they claim to be communicating with the dead, I don't care if they're from my hometown, I don't care if they're my family members: I'll expose them and tell them what they really are."
QUESTION:
how old was he when he started out?