Shot In The Dark

One of 2,996

I wasn't invited to be part of the 2,996 project - the project to ensure that some blogger, somewhere, wrote a memoriam to each of 9/11's victims (nobody ever invites me to be part of these things. I feel like...

Bruno Kirby

Bruno Kirby dead at 57:Born Bruno Giovanni Quidaciolu in 1949 in New York City, he was the son of actor Bruce Kirby. His early work included the 1971 film "Young Graduates," as well as appearances on the television show "Room...

Steven Vincent - 8/2/05

It was a year ago today that Steven Vincent died, murdered by islamofascist thugs in Basra, Iraq. The Northern Alliance interviewed Vincent twice, including one that may have been his last radio interview before leaving the US for the last...

A Broken Chanter Reed...

...scuppered my big memorial day plan. More on that in a bit. Much of Minnesota will focus on the big Memeorial Day observances, especially those at Fort Snelling, where thousands of our veterans are buried. There are other memorials, of...

The Road Warrior: RIP Joe Hansen

Someone left a comment today, and I finally confirmed it: Joe Hanson has passed away. I don't know any of the details yet, but I can certainly guess. We'll come back to that, maybe, later. I worked with Joe twice...

Warm-Hearted Condolences

The father of CH Truth, from the MOB blog Cold Hearted Truth, has passed away after a battle with cancer. Condolences and prayers for the Truth family....

Gene Pitney

Gene Pitney is dead at 65. Tom Spaundling notesAn early example of the singer/songwriter, Pitney had more success as a writer than a performer in the U.S. Ricky Nelson had a huge hit with "Hello, Mary Lou", the Crystals cut...

Buck Owens

Buck Owens dead at 76:His career was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. They were recorded with a honky-tonk twang...

Touch 'Em All

I met Kirby Puckett one time, at some sort of media event or another back after the miserable '86 season. I remember him saying something to the effect of "stick with us, everyone; we'll do better next year." And in...

Friedan

Betty Friedan passed away Saturday at age 85. Jay Reding writes::Friedan was never hostile to traditional values, but believed that those values needed to treat women as equal players in society - an egalitarian notion that led her to focus...

102

Today would have been my grandmother's 102nd birthday. I was blessed with growing up four blocks from my grandmother, Bea Berg, 'til age 17. She was the classic Scandinavian grandma - the best cook ever (sorry, Mom, you're a close...

Condolences

Scott "Scrappleface" Ott pays homage to his grandmother, who passed away in the last day:Jessica McMaster gave up her career, surrendered much of her pension, and walked away from a comfortable lifestyle in a handsome apartment to move to an...

Detective Hartigan

Katie from Yucky Salad on her uncle:Retired Detective Lieutenant Patrick Thomas ("Pat") Hartigan, whom former Police Chief Anthony Bouza once characterized as, "an urban saint," died at his home in Minneapolis on January 25. He was 75 years old. Predeceased...

August Wilson

August Wilson - who lived in Saint Paul for 12 yearsa while he wrote most of his decalogue on the black experience in America - died yesterday:August Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose celebrated epic cycle chronicled the lives of...

Simon Wiesenthal: 96 Naziism: 12

Simon Wiesenthal has passed away at age 96. Simon Wiesenthal, who dedicated a large part of his life to hunting Nazi war criminals, has died aged 96. Mr Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor, died in his sleep at his home in...

John Lundell

It saddens me to note that John Lundell passed away over the weekend. Former Twin Cities traffic reporter John Lundell - a familiar rush hour voice for many motorists - died suddenly at home on Saturday night, WCCO Radio reported...

"Cancer Is A Jerk, And I Hate It"

I only know Dan Champion through his blog, "Popping Culture". And the main theme of the blog for as long as I've read it has been Dan's fight with cancer. Dan, his blog and his attitude have been a sobering...

He Canna Violate The Laws of Physics

I was never a Star Trek fan. That'd be other peoples' turf. But I'd watch it, once in a while after school. Kirk never really clicked with me; he was always right, always won, always got the girl, always came...

RIP Karl Mueller

Karl Mueller, bass player for Soul Asylum, died yesterday of cancer at (gulp) 41. The Strib article is a long chain of names from my twenties. My old band (actually a couple of bands) used to practice in a basement...

Profile In Courage, Institutional Arrogance

The shooting of Sgt. Vick brought back a number of the events from Saint Paul's last police shooting. One of the events in the 1994 shooting was the story of Lyle Granlund. The lifelong eastsider was a hero that day...

Dworkin

Andrea Dworkin - whose name in the past twenty years surpassed "Catherine McKinnon" as a code word for "dogmatic, unthinking identity feminism", passed away over the weekend:To opponents she was an archetypal man-hater, killjoy and proponent of censorship, but supporters...

Schiavo

Terri Schiavo passed away within the past hour or so:Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman whose 15 years connected to a feeding tube sparked an epic legal battle that went all the way to the White House and Congress, died...

"NooooooooooooOOOO SMOking...In Heaven"

Bob Casey, the Minnesota Twins' first and only Public Address announcer in the 44 years of their existence, has passed away. His style was inimitable, and legendary:Casey had a definite style -- what that style was, well, that was up...

RIP Teresa Wright

Teresa Wright is dead at age 86. "Teresa who?" Take a seat....

RIP Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson passed away at 67 today, from suicide. Although I read Hells Angels and Fear And Loathing once upon a time, they made no impression on my whatsoever. Ditto his political coverage at Rolling Stone. The guy could...

Schmeling

Perhaps from the "I had no idea he was alive" files: Max Schmeling is dead at 99. He was famous for his title bouts against Joe Louis. He served as a paratrooper in the German Army in WWII. Schmeling is...

RIP Johnny Carson

I came late to the table as a Johnny Carson fan. When I was a kid, Carson had a big strike against him; he was the show my friends' parents watched. So uncool. That, and I never really watched much...

Hey, Ho

Johnny Ramone, guitarist for the Ramones, is dead at 55. The best musicians - especially in the world of garage rock - are the ones where you can tell by watching and listening that they're not showing you everything...

Pat Hall

My grandmother, and last surviving grandparent, Pat Hall, died Thursday morning. It was the day after her 91st birthday - hence the name "Pat". She died two years to the month after her husband of nearly 70 years, my grandfather...

Hasten Down The Wind

We knew it was coming. It doesn't help. Warren Zevon died yesterday afternoon at age 56: "In a macabre songbook that includes 'Excitable Boy,' 'Lawyers, Guns and Money' and 'Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,' Zevon presented a world of the...

I come not to Rip Strummer, but to R.I.P. Strummer

As I wrote the other night, right after I got the news, the death of Joe Strummer caught me right in my 40-year-old breadbasket. Yeah, the Clash were a huge band for me when I was in high school and...

Blah, Part 4

Blah, Part 4 - It's been a rough year for us Eighties kids - the coolest artists are dying off way too fast: Ben Orr, of the CarsJoey RamoneDee Dee RamoneStuart Adamson (guitarist for great Scottish band Big Country)Warren Zevon...

Don Hall

My grandfather, Don Hall, died Wednesday morning in Phoenix. He was 89. Unlike a lot of Americans, I was blessed to grow up with my grandfather around an awful lot when I was a kid. He was a tall,...