GSH

This getting old thing sucks. Won't be any of my heroes left before too long.

Continue reading GSH

Harmon Killebrew 1936-2011

My first favorite ballplayer. I got to shake his hand in Cooperstown 11 summers ago.

Rest in peace.

Continue reading Harmon Killebrew 1936-2011

Claire Carley Doyle

Claire Carley Doyle


DURHAM -- Claire Carley Doyle, 90, died on Sunday, March 13 at Carillon Assisted Living of Hillsborough after several months of declining health.

She is survived by her daughters, Kerry Mirabella (Shoreham, NY) and Claire Doyle Ragin (Durham); and grandson, David King (Surfside Beach, SC).

Claire was born in Manhattan, but moved to Bay Shore, NY, on the south shore of Long Island when she was 2 years old.

She was captain of every women's sports team in Bay Shore High School.

In 1945, she married Frank X. Doyle upon his return from three years of service in Europe and North Africa during WWII.

They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary a few months prior to his death from cancer in 1996.

She loved him deeply, and was always proud of his career writing Archie Comics.

They moved to New Port Richey, Fla., in 1979, where she lived until 2006, playing golf several times a week.

She moved to Emerald Pond Retirement Home in Durham in 2006, where she stayed active playing bridge, mah jong and bingo, and volunteering in several capacities.

Memorial service will be held at Emerald Pond Retirement Home, 205 Emerald Pond Lane, Durham on Wednesday, March 16, at 10:30 a.m.

In lieu of donations, family requests you take a moment to connect with someone you love, make a phone call you've been putting off, or mend a fence.

Celebrate life by living it.

Read more: The Herald-Sun - Trusted & Essential

Continue reading Claire Carley Doyle

Edwin Newman

It was just announced today by his family that long time NBC newsman Edwin Newman passed away at the age of 91. Actually my favorite of that generation of newsies, probably more so than Cronkite or Daniel Schorr.

Damn SNL for not making any of his guest appearances available, cause they showed a very different side of the man.

Here's part 1 of an interview from the mid-60s with Marshall McLuhan. Newman had a show called "Speaking Freely," which ran for an uninterrupted hour on, i think, Sunday mornings. The remaining segments are available for viewing (or listening, rather, as it appears that there's no real video of the program) on YouTube. It makes me lament what short attention spans have done to our discourse.

Continue reading Edwin Newman

Bob Sheppard

I once heard it said of Bob Sheppard, that his diction was so precise, you could hear both "g's" when he introduced Wade Boggs.

That's what a ball park should sound like.

Fare well.

Continue reading Bob Sheppard

Vic Skolnick 1929-2010

For most of you in Durham, Vic's passing yesterday at the age of 81 is not going to mean anything. Vic, along with his partner Charlotte Sky, was the founder of the New Community Cinema in Huntington, New York back in 1973. It was a shoestring operation at first, and for many years after, but Vic and Charlotte had a love of film and radical politics and culture that kept the Cinema going at a time when the overwhelming blandness and commodification of Long Island life was driving much of my generation away.

It's hard to describe someone as a friend who i had maybe half a dozen conversations with, the last a brief one at a mutual friend's 75th birthday a decade or so ago, but i think anyone who ever met Vic considered him a friend.

I have one story about Vic that i want to share. In 1981 or so i was a grad student in Public Policy at SUNY Stony Brook. I was also producing public affairs programming at the radio station there. Vic and Charlotte had managed to book a first-run documentary at the cinema, and it's possible that it was an exclusive showing in the New York area. It was a thing called The Atomic Cafe, and it traced the history of atom bomb through media portrayal from the 40s through the 70s, including, as i recall, the infamous 4 minute Duck and Cover "educational" short that terrorized a generation of US schoolchildren. It also had a killer soundtrack. Vic asked me if i would help produce a PSA for the run that could air on non-commercial stations in the area. It seemed that selling out the Cinema was pretty important. Of course, they couldn't pay, but i wouldn't have taken his money anyway. I spent about 20 hours putting a 60 second spot together. Vic and Charlotte loved it, and as far as i know it got a bit of airplay on a bunch of stations. I got a pair of passes from Vic as a thank you, and a couple of weeks later i took a date to a screening of something that i have no recollection of. Free movies, though, are a pretty nice thing for low paid grad students. Maybe not quite as nice as being on the list with a plus one for a Clash concert, but not bad.

So we went to the show, i gave Vic the passes, and to my surprise he gave them back to me when we walked in. "What's that for?" i asked. "Oh, those are good for a whole year," he replied. "Use them as often as you like."

I probably should have gone more often, but Huntington was a few towns away, and not always the easiest place to get to. But for the half dozen or so times i went, Vic, i was always appreciative of the chance to help you out, and your generosity in return.

Long Island is a better place for your having lived there.

Rest in peace.

Continue reading Vic Skolnick 1929-2010

Sad

Oh, man.

Yeah, i'm bummin'.

Continue reading Sad

Rest in peace, my friend

Ed Hodges, 1919 - 2009

Continue reading Rest in peace, my friend

Lévi-Strauss

I had no idea he was still among us until today.

Continue reading Lévi-Strauss

People who died

Jim Carroll.

I hope he was happy.

Continue reading People who died

Best song ever

Continue reading Best song ever

Macavine Hayes - RIP

Well, damn. Macavine was one of the Music Maker success stories, and a lot of fun when he played out in Durham.

Continue reading Macavine Hayes - RIP

"For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee! "

Ricardo Montalban, arguably the most important person in the history of the Star Trek franchise, died today at the ripe old age of 88. I say that because if Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan had sucked anywhere near as much wind as the first Trek movie, the whole franchise would have been as dead as an extra crewman in a red shirt on a desert plan in act 2. Fortunately, Montalban made a perfect foil for Captain Kirk, the movie was exciting and every bit as good as the Star Wars movies, and we got to boldly go with Captain Picard for a decade or so as a result.

Funeral arrangements are apparently incomplete, but there's no truth to the rumor that he'll be buried in a casket of rich Corinthian leather.

Continue reading "For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee! "

Be seeing you

"I am not a number! I am a free man!"

Emmy-winning actor Patrick McGoohan, best known for starring in cult 1960s TV show The Prisoner, has died at the age of 80.

He died in Los Angeles after a short illness, his film producer son-in-law Cleve Landsberg told Associated Press.

McGoohan played the character Six in the surreal 1960s show, filmed in the north Wales village of Portmeirion.

I wonder if this killed him:

ITV is currently remaking The Prisoner in conjunction with American cable channel AMC.It is due to air later this year.

I think i posted recently that i just finished watching the series and felt a bit of a let down with the last couple of episodes. But really, that's gonna be peanuts compared to what a remake is going to do to this classic. Hopefully it will sink from sight as fast as The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Continue reading Be seeing you

Eartha Kitt

Continue reading Eartha Kitt

She made a mean plomik soup

Majel Barrett 1932 - 2008.

Adding, although Barrett was there from the very beginning, playing the Executive Officer, Number One, to Jeffrey Hunter's Captain Pike in the first pilot before playing Nurse Chapel in ST:TOS, it was the recurring character Lwaxana Troi, the amorous and unpredictable mother of Ship's Counselor Deanna Troi that really won Barrett a place in all Star Trek fans' hearts. The episode where she gets Worf to soak in a mud bath, for instance, and shows up at her wedding nude, is classic.

Go boldly.

Continue reading She made a mean plomik soup

Well, damn

And how much she wanted to perform at the inauguration.

Her voice was an accompaniment to the black-and-white images of the freedom marchers who walked the roads of Alabama and Mississippi and the boulevards of Washington in the quest to end racial discrimination.

Rosa Parks, the woman who started the boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Ala., was once asked which songs meant the most to her. She replied, “All of the songs Odetta sings.”

Continue reading Well, damn

Miriam Makeba 1932 - 2008

More

Continue reading Miriam Makeba 1932 - 2008

He was the Indian of the group

Jimmy Carl Black 1938 - 2008

Continue reading He was the Indian of the group

Thanks

Studs Terkel 1912 - 2009.

Continue reading Thanks