Category: Memoriam
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Harmon Killebrew
The smell of fresh-cut grass. A whiff of the “hops” from my Dad’s freshly-opened Hamm’s, and the smell of baked beans coming from the kitchen. That hot-tar smell you get in small towns on brutally warm days, when the sun’s been beating down all day – hot tar and dust from the alley, mixing with…
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RIP Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor has reportedly passed away. I don’t have much to write about her; tune in to Sheila O’Malley over the next few days, she’ll no doubt have a barn-burner of a post. Or ten. For my money, my favorite was her turn in Zeffirelli’s 1967 adaptation of Taming of the Shrew.
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The Last Doughboy
Frank Buckles – the last surviving American veteran of World War I – has rejoined the rest of his comrades. He passed away yesterday, age 110. Buckles, who also survived being a civilian POW in the Philippines in World War II, died peacefully of natural causes early Sunday at his home in Charles Town [West…
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Dick Winters
Dick Winters, the Pennsylvania Quaker who became famous later in life as the commander of E Company/506th Parachute Infantry (and later of the Regiment’s 2nd Battalion) in Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers, and the eponymous TV series, has passed away: Dick Winters led a quiet life on his Fredericksburg farm and in his Hershey home until…
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She Could Do It
Geraldine Hoff Doyle, the woman on whom the iconic World War 2 home-front “We Can Do It” poster and template for the “Rosie the Riveter” image was reputedly modeled, passed away today. She was 86. She didn’t know it at the time, of course; she’d had a still snapped for a news story by an…
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Conlon Arrangements
I’ve had a few people ask: the memorial service for Tom Conlon will be 2pm this coming Monday, December 20th, at Saint Louis King of France Catholic Church in Saint Paul. The Saint Paul Republicans are throwing an Irish Wake on Sunday from 4-8pm at – where else? – O’Gara’s Bar & Grill, at Selby & Snelling…
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RIP Tom Conlon
It’s been a big week for awful news. Tom Conlon – for many years, the only elected Republican official in any capacity in Ramsey County – died on Sunday: Police were called to the 2100 block of Berkeley Avenue, where Conlon lived, about 5:55 a.m. Sunday. A neighbor and a snow plow driver saw Conlon…
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Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm McLaren, punk-rock impresario behind the Sex Pistols, dead at 64. McClaren’s longtime partner, Young Kim, said “He was a great artist who changed the world.” And she’s probably right – except that McLaren was an artist in the post-Romantic, 20th-century sense of the term; he believed that destroying art was art. It was a…
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Frustrated
Here’s a flashback to my first year in radio: Doug Fieger, via dead at 57: Fieger formed The Knack in Los Angeles 1978, and the group quickly became a staple of Sunset Strip rock clubs. A year later he co-wrote and sang lead vocals on “My Sharona.” Fieger said the song, with its pounding drums…
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Murtha
I can say with absolute honesty that I would have preferred John Murtha left office standing up, after losing an election this fall. Sadly, it’s not to be. John Murtha passed away today after complication from gall-bladder surgery. For all the policy stances I disagreed with, and the way he dealt with opposition (not well),…
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Tenth Story
J. D. Salinger is dead. He’s most famous – at least among the non-English-Department crowd – for Catcher in the Rye: “Catcher” was published in 1951, and its very first sentence, distantly echoing Mark Twain, struck a brash new note in American literature: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably…
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The Original Center-Right Blogger
Going back to my infancy as a G-list pundit – at KSTP in 1986, when I started my first conservative talk show – I was keenly aware that going on the air without a goal was a little like trying to push a hose up a hill. My goal was to be what Hugh Hewitt…
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Let The Camelot References Begin
Ted Kennedy dead at 77: Edward M. Kennedy, the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply, died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port (Massachusetts),” the Kennedy family said in a statement early on Wednesday.One of the most influential and longest-serving senators in U.S. history — a liberal standard-bearer who was…
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“My secret is to keep going, keep working”
And that’s what Les Paul did. The legendary guitarist, and even more legendary inventor, passed away today at age 94 from complications to a case of pneumonia – but not before winning a Grammy for an album recorded when he was already past 90. His big contributions, of course, came 50 and 60 years ago: As an inventor,…
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“Not that I condone fascism”
“…or any -ism for that matter. -Ism’s in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, “I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.” Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I’d…
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The Day The Media Died
I don’t know if I was the last generation to grow up believing that the media had a sense of collective integrity – that the media really did observe the whole myth of “objectivity”, that the mainstream media (the only kind we had at the time) was honest and detached and really had integrity. But…
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But Wait!
Pitchman Billy Mays, found dead at 50. And if you order now, Tony Sullivan will die, too! (Just kidding. Sincerely condolences to the Mays family, and hopes for a long, healthy life for Mr. Sullivan).
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Do You Remember the Time
One of his lesser-known songs (and videos for that matter) Do You Remember the Time is one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs; the second track of Dangerous, released in 1991. Click the pic for the video.
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As Things Were II
Lest we not forget…
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As Things Were
It occurred to me last night; my kids have no concept of Michael Jackson, other than the freakish tabloid-fodder plastic-surgery nightmare figure he’s been their entire lives. Indeed, I dont’ think anyone under age thirty has any other reference for Jackson. But walking through the parking lot at Rainbow yesterday, I did hear three different…
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Jacko Fade To Blacko
Michael Jackson, King of Pop, dead at 50 A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived. A cardiologist at UCLA tells TMZ Jackson died of cardiac arrest. Once at the hospital, the staff tried to resuscitate him but he was completely unresponsive. A source inside the hospital told us there was “absolute chaos”…
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HEY-Yooooooooooo!
Ed McMahon passes away at 86: Ed McMahon, the longtime pitchman and Johnny Carson sidekick who’s “Heeeeeeerre’s Johnny!” became a part of the vernacular, has died. McMahon’s publicist, Howard Bragman, said Tuesday McMahon passed away peacefully at the Ronald Reagan/UCLA Medical Center shortly after midnight. McMahon had suffered a number of health problems in recent…
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Jack Kemp
There were three people who turned me into a conservative. Four, if you count Ronald Reagan. But before I, who grew up very much a liberal, could embrace the idea of conservativsm that Ronald Reagan put out there – and let’s remember that to a liberal Ronald Reagan, especially the version of Reagan that liberals…
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RIP Jack Kemp
Former Bills’ quarterback, Congressman, Presidential contender and conservative heavyweight Jack Kemp has passed away. Kemp had announced in January 2009 that he had been diagnosed with cancer. He said he was undergoing tests but gave no other detail. Kemp, a former quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, represented western New York for nine terms in Congress,…
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Mark “The Bird” Fidrych
Tigers great Fidrych found dead yesterday: Fidrych, who won 19 games as a rookie in ’76 but had his pitching career abbreviated by injuries, was found dead by his friend Joseph Amorello beneath his 10-wheel truck at about 2:30 p.m. State police detectives are investigating the circumstances of the accident, said Worcester Country District Attorney…