Former KSTP host Mark O’Connell dead of cancer at 52:

O’Connell worked for eight years at the talk radio station, most recently on the “Ron and Mark Show” with Ron Rosenbaum. The show ended in September when the station cancelled the pair’s contract, Rosenbaum said.

Previously, O’Connell and Rosenbaum had teamed up for “The 9-11 Show,” and the two worked with Barbara Carlson on the morning “Babs and the Boys.” He also hosted a show on KOOL 108 prior to his years at KSTP.

There’s a lesson, here:

O’Connell had been ill for some time, but wanted to wait until after the holidays to get it checked out, said his wife, Gloria. He ended up going to the emergency room at Abbott Northwestern Hospital on Dec. 29.

“I think he knew he was sick for quite a while, but like a lot of men he didn’t want to go to the doctor,” his wife said.

She’s right, you know. And I’m worse than most.

Get checked up.

I remember a story from Paul Harvey, twenty years ago, about a guy on an aircraft carrier during the Great Typhoon of 1945 (a storm that struck the US Seventh Fleet causing immense damage and sinking three destroyers). A guy walking along the deck was caught by a shift in the wind and an unexpected roll in the titanic waves, and wound up getting swept and falling down the slanted deck toward the sea below. His shoe caught a two-inch steel lip on the edge of the flight deck, and the sailor – an officer – held on until the ship righted itself.

He was Lieutenant Gerald Ford, a navigation officer on carrier USS Monterey, and of course the future president. I always thought the story was an able metaphor for his presidency; a fortuitous, even if slightly mundane, rescue from the brink.
Ford died yesterday at age 93, most known perhaps for his pardon of Nixon:

That single act, it was widely believed, contributed to Ford losing election to a term of his own in 1976. But it won praise in later years as a courageous act that allowed the nation to move on.

The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the U.S. during his presidency with the fall of Saigon in April 1975. In a speech as the end neared, Ford said: “Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned.” Evoking Abraham Lincoln, he said it was time to “look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”

Ford was in the White House only 895 days, but changed it more than it changed him.

Even after two women tried separately to kill him, his presidency remained open and plain.

Not imperial. Not reclusive. And, of greatest satisfaction to a nation numbed by Watergate, not dishonest.

Even to millions of Americans who had voted two years earlier for Nixon, the transition to Ford’s leadership was one of the most welcomed in the history of the democratic process – despite the fact that it occurred without an election.

I was too young to really understand much about Gerald Ford when he was president; I was 12-13 years old at the time. His importance has only resonated in the time since Chevy Chase’ impression ceased to be my major impression of him. But his job – bringing the nation down from the nightmare of Watergate – was a huge one. Others might have done it better; Ford did it well enough.

(more…)

James Brown dead at 73:

Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid- footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowies “Fame,” Princes “Kiss,” George Clintons “Atomic Dog” and Sly and the Family Stones “Sing a Simple Song” were clearly based on Browns rhythms and vocal style.

“He was an innovator, he was an emancipator, he was an originator. Rap music, all that stuff came from James Brown,” entertainer Little Richard, a longtime friend of Browns, told MSNBC. “A great treasure is gone.”

Sad icing on the sundae of a most dismal Christmas.

Ahmet Ertegun dead at 83.

For all the justifiable reputation Motown garnered for bringing R&B to a mass audience, it was Ertegun’s Atlantic Records that brought R&B to the wider world:

[Ertegun’s Atlantic Records] popularized the gritty R&B of Ray Charles, the classic soul of Aretha Franklin and the British rock of the Rolling Stones…
remained connected to the music scene until his last days – it was at an Oct. 29 concert by the Rolling Stones at the Beacon Theatre in New York where Ertegun fell, suffered a head injury and was hospitalized. He later slipped into a coma.

“He was in a coma and expired today with his family at his bedside,” said Dr. Howard A. Riina, Ertegun’s neurosurgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center…Ertegun will be buried in a private ceremony in his native Turkey, said Bob Kaus, a spokesman for Ertegun and Atlantic Records. A memorial service will be conducted in New York after the New Year’s.

Don’t hold James Blunt against him.

Dead at age 87.

Want eloquent writing about actors? See Sheila:

I’m sure others can be more eloquent about this well-loved and LONG successful actor (look at his IMDB page – especially look at the dates .. there isn’t really a significant GAP like there are with many old actors, gaps that show that they couldn’t get work for, oh, 10, 20 years … No gap. Palance has always worked.) … so I will just note his passing with sadness. I always liked having him around. Crotchety, old-school, talented, didn’t make a big deal about it, but obviously gave a crap about his work.

Oh … and a little bit crazy.

You know:

I love nuts like him.

Ditto.