Dropping Like Flies

[vansmack]

Originally posted by amnesiac:
  Hunter S. Thompson's  suicide note:
 
  No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt.

That's just eery.

[Jaguär]

Another classic leaves us. I always loved this guy's music.
 
 LEGENDARY BLUES MUSICIAN DIES
 
 CLARENCE �??GATEMOUTH�?? BROWN, the GRAMMY-award winning guitarist and singer, has died at the age of 81.
 
 Brown passed away in Texas on Saturday (September 10) surrounded by his family at his brother�??s home in Orange.
 
 The guitarist had been battling lung cancer and heart disease and was said to be �??devastated�?� after his home in Slidell, Louisiana was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
 
 According to BBC News, his booking agent Rick Cady said: �??I'm sure he was heartbroken, both literally and figuratively. He evacuated successfully before the hurricane hit, but I'm sure it weighed heavily on his soul."
 
 During his career �?? which spanned over half a century - Brown recorded with Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder and Frank Zappa.
 
 Brown was born in Louisiana, but raised in Texas and gained the �??Gatemouth�?? nickname for his deep voice.
 
 He cited his father �?? a railway worker and fiddle player �?? as his greatest musical influence, saying, �??If I can make my guitar sound like his fiddle, then I know I've got it right."
 
 The guitarist career�??s took off in the late 1940�??s and he went on to record such tracks as �??Okie Dokie Stomp�?? and �??Ain�??t That Dandy�?? but becoming frustrated by the limits of blues guitar, he started to move into jazz and country.
 
 Colin Waters, who is currently writing Brown�??s biography, said; �??He is one of the most underrated guitarists, musicians and arrangers I've ever met, an absolute prodigy.�?�
 
 He added: �??He never wanted to be called a bluesman, but I used to tell him that though he may not like the blues, he does the blues better than anyone."

Mary J.Bilge

[ggw]

Maxwell Smart
 
 Don Adams of 'Get Smart' Dies at 82
 By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer
 20 minutes ago
 
 LOS ANGELES - Don Adams, the wry-voiced comedian who starred as the fumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart in the 1960s television spoof of James Bond movies, "Get Smart," has died. He was 82.
 
 Adams died of a lung infection late Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his friend and former agent Bruce Tufeld said Monday, adding the actor broke his hip a year ago and had been in ill health since.
 
 As the inept Agent 86 of the super-secret federal agency Control, Adams captured TV viewers with his antics in combatting the evil agents of Kaos. When his explanations failed to convince the villains or his boss, he tried another tack: "Would you believe ... ?" It became a national catchphrase.
 
 Smart was also prone to spilling things on the desk or person of his boss �?? the chief (actor     Edward Platt). Smart's apologetic "Sorry about that, chief" also entered the American lexicon. The spy gadgets, which aped those of the Bond movies, were a popular feature, especially the pre-cell-phone telephone in a shoe.
 
 Smart's beautiful partner, Agent 99, played by Barbara Felden, was as brainy as he was dense, and a plot romance led to marriage and the birth of twins later in the series.
 
 Adams, who had been under contract to NBC, was lukewarm about doing a spy spoof. When he learned that Mel Brooks and Buck Henry had written the pilot script, he accepted immediately. "Get Smart" debuted on NBC in September 1965 and scored No. 12 among the season's most-watched series and No. 22 in its second season.
 
 "Get Smart" twice won the Emmy for best comedy series with three Emmys for Adams as comedy actor.
 
 CBS picked up the show but the ratings fell off as the jokes seemed repetitive, and it was canceled after four seasons. The show lived on in syndication and a cartoon series. In 1995 Fox network revived the series with Smart as chief and 99 as a congresswoman. It lasted seven episodes.
 
 Adams never had another showcase to display his comic talent.
 
 "It was a special show that became a cult classic of sorts, and I made a lot of money for it," he remarked of "Get Smart" in a 1995 interview. "But it also hindered me career-wise because I was typed. The character was so strong, particularly because of that distinctive voice, that nobody could picture me in any other type of role."
 
 He was born Donald James Yarmy in New York City on April 13, 1926, Tufeld said, although some sources say 1923 or 1927. The actor's father was a Hungarian Jew who ran a few small restaurants in the Bronx.
 
 In a 1959 interview Adams said he never cared about being funny as a kid: "Sometimes I wonder how I got into comedy at all. I did movie star impressions as a kid in high school. Somehow they just got out of hand."
 
 In 1941, he dropped out of school to join the Marines, lying about his age. In Guadalcanal he survived the deadly blackwater fever and was returned to the States to become a drill instructor, acquiring the clipped delivery that served him well as a comedian.
 
 After the war he worked in New York as a commercial artist by day, doing standup comedy in clubs at night, taking the surname of his first wife, Adelaide Adams. His following grew, and soon he was appearing on the Ed Sullivan and late night TV shows. Bill Dana, who had helped him develop comedy routines, cast him as his sidekick on Dana's Jose Jiminez show. That led to the NBC contract and "Get Smart."
 
 Adams, who married and divorced three times and had seven children, served as the voice for the popular cartoon series, "Inspector Gadget." In 1980, he appeared as Maxwell Smart in a feature movie, "The Nude Bomb," about a madman whose bomb destroyed people's clothing.
 
 Tufeld said funeral arrangements were incomplete.
 
  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050926/ap_en_tv/obit_adams

Get Smart was a fantastic program.

[SPARX]

Originally posted by Ellis D. Fleischbach:
  Get Smart was a fantastic program.

Agent 13 was the coolest!

I liked Siegfried & Shtarker.
 
 "This is KAOS, we don't beep beep beep."
 
 www.wouldyoubelieve.com/cast.html

[Random Citizen]

Actor Nipsey Russell Dies
 
 (New York-WABC, October 3, 2005) - Actor Nipsey Russell, known as "the poet laureate of television," passed away yesterday afternoon at Lenox Hill Hospital.
 Eyewitness News has learned Russell died of cancer, confirmed his longtime manager, Joseph Rapp. He was in his early 80s.
 
 Rapp said Russell was born in 1923, although some reports had him born in 1924. The manager said his age was never clear because Russell did not retain a birth certificate.
 
 Russell achieved his first major role as Officer Anderson in "Car 54, Where Are You?"
 
 He appeared on a string of game shows and variety shows, such as the "Dean Martin Roasts," "Laugh-In," "Jackie Gleason Show," among many others.
 
 Russell delighted audiences with short poems, earning him the nickname "the poet laureate of television." He appeared on "The Tonight Show" and many other very popular talk shows of the day.
 
 While he did not appear in many film roles, he will be remembered for his role of the Tin Man in the 1978 "The Wiz." The movie was a box office failure, but since the movie has been considered a cult classic.
 
 (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) (Copyright 2005 WABC-TV)

Nipsey isn't dead!

[Jaguär]

Big Audio Dynamite Guitarist Dies
 
 Nick Hawkins dies aged 40
 Former Big Audio Dynamite member Nick Hawkins has died.
 
 The guitarist passed away at home on October 10 after suffering a heart attack. He was 40 years old.
 
 Hawkins, who was born in Luton, joined Mick Jones in Big Audio Dynamite in 1990, playing with the band until 1997, when he left.
 
 Hawkins subsequently relocated to Las Vegas, and recently worked on an album for his wife, Jo Beng. He was working on a solo album when he died called 'Dusk Till Dawn', which was due for release in 2006.

Former SNL-er  Charles Rocket

[Jaguar]

'Little Rascals' Actor Gordon Lee Dies
 
 4 minutes ago
 
 Gordon Lee, the chubby child actor who played Spanky McFarland's little brother Porky in the "Little Rascals" comedies, has died. He was 71.
 
 Lee died Sunday in a Minneapolis nursing home after battling lung and brain cancer, said Janice McClain, his partner of 13 years.
 
 Lee played one of the younger members in the "Our Gang" shorts in the 1930s, appearing in more than 40 of them from 1935 to 1939. The comedies, produced by Hal Roach, became known as "The Little Rascals" when shown on TV in the 1950s.
 
 Among the films Lee appeared in were "Bored of Education," which won the Oscar for best one-reel short subject in 1937; "Our Gang Follies of 1936"; "The Awful Tooth"; and "Roamin' Holiday."
 
 In a 1998 interview with the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, the Texas-born Lee said he was 2 years old when his mother sent his picture to studio executives who were seeking an actor to play McFarland's brother.
 
 "We were on the next train to L.A. and I had a contract within a few days," Lee said. "Fat kid got lucky."
 
 "My memories are not about making movies. We played with our toys and the adults played with theirs (the cameras)," he said.
 
 He and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas teamed up against older boys Spanky and Alfalfa in many of the comedies. The Porky character is credited with originating the catchphrase "otay."
 
 In the interview, Lee recalled a warm friendship with his black costar when they were kids and praised their interracial relationship on screen, saying, "Buckwheat played an absolute equal part in the Gang."
 
 Lee told friends his career ended when a growth spurt made him thinner. "They wanted Porky to be a chunky fellow, so they looked for someone else," McClain said.
 
 He was born Eugene Lee in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1933. His adoptive parents began calling him Gordon after Gordon Douglas, who directed many of the films Lee appeared in. He kept the first name as an adult.
 
 Lee was a schoolteacher, living in Colorado for a time. He moved to Minnesota after he retired to be closer to his only son, Douglas, said a friend, Tracy Tolzmann. In recent years, Lee sold autographed photos of himself as Porky, Tolzmann and McClain said.
 
 "Before that he felt like he was forgotten," McClain said. "It really made him feel good about himself."

[beetsnotbeats]

A local legend passes on.
 
  Jazz Singer Shirley Horn Dead At 71
 
 Jazz singer and native Washingtonian Shirley Horn has died at the age of 71.
 
 A family member has told 9 News that Horn passed away Thursday night.
 
 Born May 1, 1934, in Washington, D.C., Horn attended Howard University's Junior School of Music as a teenager, where she studied classical piano. She later began playing piano gigs at local nightclubs and restaurants.
 
 One day, after a gentleman with a giant teddy bear walked in a dining room where she was performing and promised to give her the bear if she would sing "Melancholy Baby" for him, it launched her career as a vocalist.
 
 A superior ballad singer and a talented pianist, Horn put off potential success until finally becoming a major attraction while in her 50s. She put together her first trio in 1954 and was encouraged in the early '60s by Miles Davis and Quincy Jones.
 
 She recorded three albums during 1963-65 for Mercury and ABC-Paramount but chose to stick around Washington D.C. and raise a family instead of pursuing her career.
 
 In the early '80s she began recording for SteepleChase but Shirley Horn really had her breakthrough in 1987 when she started making records for Verve, an association that continues to the present day.
 
 In recent years, complications from diabetes led to the amputation of her right foot and later Horn lost much of her right leg. She was forced to give up the piano bench for the first time in more than six decades, changing a major aspect of her performances; the ability to sing and play the piano at once.

[ggw]

Wellington Mara -- a hundred times the man Dan Snyder will ever be.
 
 NFL pioneer Mara dies
 
 Giants owner was last of NFL's founding generation
 Updated: Tuesday October 25, 2005 12:16PM
 
 NEW YORK (AP) -- Wellington Mara of the New York Giants, one of the NFL's most influential owners for more than a half century and the last of the league's founding generation, died Tuesday. He was 89.
 
 Mara, who was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997, died of cancer at his home in Rye, the team said.
 
 Mara's influence went far beyond the Giants. He clearly was one of the most important figures in NFL history.
 
 "Wellington Mara represented the heart and soul of the National Football League," NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said. "He was a man of deep conviction who stood as a beacon of integrity."
 
 One of Mara's greatest contributions came in the early 1960s. He and brother Jack, owners of the biggest team in the biggest market, agreed to share television revenue on a leaguewide basis, dividing the huge amounts of money available in cities like New York with smaller markets from Pittsburgh to Green Bay.
 
 Part of that agreement meant that the Giants ceded the right to sell their own games to television for a leaguewide contract, in those days with CBS. That concept of revenue sharing allowed the NFL to thrive and remains in place today.
 
 He also served during the 1970s as chairman of the NFL's Management Council, which negotiated labor contracts, and as a member of the competition committee.
 
 In 1989, he and group of older owners wanted Pete Rozelle's successor to be Jim Finks, then the New Orleans general manager, rather than Tagliabue, then a league lawyer. Mara thought the league should be run by a football man.
 
 But Mara and several other old-guard owners finally agreed to break a stalemate of four months by throwing their votes to Tagliabue and he became one of the new commissioner's staunchest supporters, a man Tagliabue often leaned on for advice.
 
 Tagliabue wasn't the only one who sought out Mara. His advice also was invaluable to other owners, league officials, media and even fans.
 
 "When Well Mara stood to speak at a league meeting, the room would become silent with anticipation because all of us knew we were going to hear profound insights born of eight decades of league experience," Tagliabue said.
 
 Mara became a Giants' ballboy at age 9 on Oct. 18, 1925 after his father, Timothy J. Mara, bought the team. He stayed fully involved in its operation for almost 80 years, except for three years while in the Navy during World War II. Until he became ill last spring, he attended most practices and every game.
 
 In 1930, at 14, his father made him co-owner with older brother Jack, and he ran the club until several years ago when son John took over day-to-day operations.
 
 But from 1979 on, while the team was run by general managers George Young and Ernie Accorsi, Mara had final say on football decisions. He was the one who decided to fire Jim Fassel after the 2003 season and replace him with Tom Coughlin.
 
 "I've never had more respect for anybody in this business, or in any business, or in any walk of life, than Wellington Mara," said Coughlin, an assistant on earlier Giants teams. "To say Wellington Mara is one of a kind, I would endorse that wholeheartedly."
 
 Before last Sunday's game against Denver, Coughlin told his players of Mara's condition. The Giants won on a touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Amani Toomer with 5 seconds left. In the locker room after the game, the players chanted "Duke, Duke, Duke" -- Mara's nickname.
 
 Manning later said he had been told by one of Mara's grandsons that the owner awakened in time to see the winning play, then smiled and went back to sleep.
 
 "Wellington Mara is the face of not only the New York Giants but the NFL," tight end Jeremy Shockey said. "He's a pioneer and the guy that everybody looks up to."
 
 When former players became ill, Mara would find them doctors, pay their medical expenses and arrange help for their families. Many old-timers were on the payroll as scouts or advisers. Even in this era of sophisticated scouting, it wasn't unusual for Young or Accorsi to get a call from a former player recommending the Giants look at some prospect.
 
 In most cases, the team was well aware of the prospect, but Mara never dropped any of those old "scouts" from the payroll.
 
 Mara always considered himself a football man first, running the on-field operations through the 1950s until 1979 while Jack and then Jack's son Tim ran the business end. The team was successful during the '50s and early '60s with such stars as Frank Gifford, Y.A. Tittle, Sam Huff and Roosevelt Brown and a coaching staff that included Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi as assistants.
 
 But after losing to Chicago in the 1963 NFL championship game, the Giants began a long slide, failing to make the playoffs again until 1981 as Wellington and Tim, by then the co-owner, feuded.
 
 In 1979, on the commissioner's recommendation, the Maras agreed to hire Young as general manager and the team again became a power.
 
 It won Super Bowls in 1986 and 1990 with Bill Parcells coaching a team that starred Lawrence Taylor and Phil Simms and stout defenses. The 1990 team featured one of the best coaching staffs assembled: future head coaches Coughlin, Bill Belichick, Al Groh, Charlie Weis, Romeo Crennel and Ray Handley.
 
 Parcells left after that season and the Giants slipped into the middle of the pack.
 
 They made the Super Bowl again after the 2000 season, losing to the Baltimore Ravens, owned by Art Modell, Mara's close friend and longtime partner in league matters. Mara never openly criticized Modell's move of a team that had been the Giants' chief on-field rival during the '50s and '60s, and they celebrated getting to the Super Bowl together.
 
 In 1991, Tim Mara and his family sold their share of the team to Robert Tisch. Tisch and Mara were officially co-owners and Tisch ran much of the business affairs. But it was always clear this was Wellington's team -- for many years they were known by New York headline writers as "the Maramen."
 
 Mara is survived by wife Ann, 11 children and 40 grandchildren.
 
 There was no immediate word on funeral arrangements.

[ggw]

Link Wray
 
 COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Guitar master Link Wray, the father of the power chord in rock 'n' roll who inspired legends such as Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie and Pete Townsend, has died.
 
 Wray, 76, died at his home in Copenhagen Nov. 5, a statement from his wife and son on his Web site said. No cause of death was given, but his family said his heart was "getting tired." He was buried quietly after a service at Copenhagen's Christian Church Nov. 18.
 
 "While playing his guitar he often told the audience, 'God is playing my guitar, I am with God when I play,'" his wife, Olive, and son, Oliver Christian, wrote. "We saw you go with God, you were smiling."
 
 Wray developed a style considered the blueprint for heavy metal and punk music. Frequently seen playing in his trademark leather jacket, he is best known for his 1958 instrumental "Rumble," 1959 "Rawhide" and 1963's "Jack the Ripper." His music has been featured in movies including "Pulp Fiction," "Independence Day" and "Desperado."
 
 Wray, who was three-quarters Shawnee Indian, is said to have inspired many other rock musicians, including Pete Townsend of the Who, but also David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Steve Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen. All have been quoted as saying that Wray and "Rumble" inspired them to become musicians.
 
 "He is the king; if it hadn't been for Link Wray and 'Rumble,' I would have never picked up a guitar,'" Townsend wrote on one of Wray's albums. Neil Young once said: "If I could go back in time and see any band, it would be Link Wray and the Raymen."
 
 The power chord �?? a thundering sound created by playing fifths (two notes five notes apart, often with the lower note doubled an octave above) �?? became a favorite among rock players. Wray claimed because he was too slow to be a whiz on the guitar, he had to invent sounds.
 
 When recording "Rumble," he created the fuzz tone by punching holes in his amplifiers to produce a dark, grumbling sound. It took off instantly, but it was banned by some deejays in big cities for seeming to suggest teen violence.
 
 "I was looking for something that Chet Atkins wasn't doing, that all the jazz kings wasn't doing, that all the country pickers wasn't doing. I was looking for my own sound," Wray told The Associated Press in 2002.
 
 He was born Frederick Lincoln Wray Jr. in 1929 in Dunn, N.C. His two brothers, Vernon and Doug, were also musicians. The three became a country hit as "Lucky Wray and the Palomino Ranch Hands." Later, after "Rumble," they became "Link Wray and the Raymen," or Wraymen, as it was sometimes spelled. Later, the brothers' relationship soured after a dispute about the rights to "Rumble."
 
 In 1978, he moved to Denmark and married Olive Julie Povlsen. They raised their son in a three-story house on an island where Hans Christian Andersen once lived.
 
 Though he went out of style in the '60s, he was rediscovered by later generations. He toured the United States and Canada since the mid-1990s, playing 40 shows this year. In 2002, Guitar World magazine elected Wray one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.