Veg Out

After 15 years in a vegetative state and a 5-year battle in the courts, Terry Schiavo, America’s favorite legal, moral and political football, has been granted the peace long denied her by self-serving lawmakers. While her parents saw hope in the face that launched a thousand living wills, numerous court-named clinicians had declared her vegetative state permanent, and her husband Michael, rather than taking the easy way out by conceding guardianship, endured unimaginable circumstances in order to honor her wishes. Wait, this just in, Congress has passed emergency legislation requiring Schiavo to resume breathing. In addition, citing their need to fill 24 hours a day, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS and NBC have filed lawsuits also demanding that Schiavo begin breathing again. In a related development, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has called up the Florida National Guard to force her to resume breathing. Unfortunately, the Guard is currently stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, so they are unavailable when they are needed at home.

Head and Neck Above the Rest

When God Takes a Soul, It’s Time to Dig a Hole

Or
(The Monty section of the update)
When the tumor hits, the lawyer quits

Or
If the celebrity lawyer dies, the public gets a surprise

Or
I thought my tumor was only a rumor
Johnnie Cochran, the man who convinced 12 addled Californians that murder wasn’t illegal has made good on his pact with the devil yesterday, succumbing to a brain tumor at the age of 67. Cochran had long been the man to challenge the Man, winning multi-millionaire settlements for black defendants who claimed police abuse, and had a client list that read like an urban version of The Surreal Life, with Todd Bridges, Tupac Shakur, Jim Brown and Snoop Dogg. But Cochran entered the pop culture lexicon as the headliner of the legal dream team that used shrunken gloves, a racist cop and the general ineptitude of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office to free O.J. Simpson to find the real killer of his wife and a waiter. His “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” routine earned him mentions in the South Park Chewbacca defense, a parody of his style in Seinfeld’s Jackie Chiles and the respect of Chris Rock in Lethal Weapon 4, when he told a suspect that he had a right to hire a lawyer, but, "If you get Johnnie Cochran, I'll kill you."

A Little Less Crowded House
(Kudos to Michelle Haus)
Australia’s least attractive cultural legacy is not the Stolen Generations of aboriginal children taken from their homes, but the disturbing propensity of its ‘80s rockers to indulge in autoerotic asphyxiation. First Michael Hutchence, now Paul Hester, who added the INXSive step of doing it in a public park. Hester was the drummer for Crowded House who hit the international charts with "Weather with You" and "Don't Dream it's Over," which hit #2 in the United States.

Drop, pop, bunny hop

The Foghat falls down stairs on little cat feet
Rod Price, guitarist and founding member of the blues boogie band Foghat, has died after falling down the stairs of his Wilton, NH home at the age of 57. In 25 years, the band produced three platinum and eight gold records, but apparently no public service announcements about the merit of handrails.

Morte Seinfeld
Barney Martin, who went from joke-telling NYPD detective to Jerry Seinfeld’s trench coat-designing, penny-pinching TV dad, has died at 82. Martin parlayed the jokes he wrote for deputy commissioners into a job writing for Name that Tune and The Steve Allen Show and a gig as Jackie Gleason’s stand-in. But his rumpled mug was meant to be seen, and he was the original Mr. Cellophane as Amos Hart in Chicago – the second original cast member from Chicago to die in 3 months after Jerry Orbach. Other roles included Liza Minelli’s bum father in Arthur, the grown-up Kevin Arnold on the Wonder Years and Frank Fontana’s father on Murphy Brown.

Cut short
(Props to Monty)
Manhattan cabaret idol Bobby Short, a fixture at the Café Carlyle for 35 years, has died at the age of 80. The son of a Kentucky coal miner, he performed for generations of jazz fans and sought to educate about the great American songwriters. He entertained at the White House for the Nixons and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. A fixture in Woody Allen movies, Short also performed during the loathsome Lucy Camden’s wedding on Seventh Heaven.

Contained

Contained
(props to Craig, who shared my epitaphany, notched his first hit in 2 years, and foreshadowed George Kennan’s death with a well-time lecture.)

Or
Mr. X'ed out
(also kudos to Craig)

Or
X Marks the Burial Plot
(Plaudits to Mark)
George K. Kennan, whose 1948 signing telegram “The Containment Ragtime Review” established the framework for the U.S. approach to the cold war, had died at the age of 101. At first criticized for the length and cost of the long note, Kennan’s vision was validated by decades of presidents and congressman who couldn’t stop their toes from tapping at appropriations time. The idea of containment was expanded by an article in the Journal of Foreign Affairs under the nom de plume ‘X,’ but the original telegram remained classified for more than 50 years. Like most songwriters, Kennan was dismayed by the cover versions of his little ditty when they were used to justify conventional and nuclear weapons build-ups of the 1950s. From his development of the policy of meeting Soviet aggression at every turn, Kennan was one of the leading foreign-policy thinkers for more than a half century, writing 17 books, including two Pulitzer-Prize winners.

Kennan’s cold containment was correctly called by 6 Pooligans, including our front-runner Kirsti, who has her sights set on her second title in three years. Monty’s Mortuary also anticipated the end of the Old War, to keep pace in second. Also moving up: Shawn’s Team Two into third and the aforementioned Craig, Mark and my Youth in Asia team, who climb into 9th.

The revised leaderboard:
1st Kirsti
111114 hits, 35.8333333 points
2nd Monty’s Mortuary
111113 hits, 15.8333333 points
3rd Shawn Team Two
111112 hits, 5.8333333 points
4th Shawn Team One
111111 hit, 20 points
(tie) Keith (Nine Old Men, and One Old Woman)
111111 hit, 20 points

Recent work and personal events have kept me from keeping current with noteworthy but not hit-worthy passings, but I have not forgotten, so here are some quick hits on the recently laid to rest, not including my NCAA bracket – thanks Wake Forest….

Monster Mashed
Former Red Sox ace closer Dick “the Monster” Radatz died following a fall in his home at the age of 67. Standing 6-foot-5 with a 95 mph fastball, Radatz’s presence alone was intimidating, but as so often occurs with the Red Sox, his nickname and legend were secured against the New York Yankees. Entering a game at Fenway Park with the bases loaded, Radatz struck out Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Elston Howard, Yankees who would win 6 AL MVP Awards in an 8-year span, on a total of 10 pitches. When asked later, Mantle chalked the inning up to “that monster Radatz.”

Mr. Outside the Ethereal Plane
Heisman Trophy winner Glenn Davis has died at the age of 80. As Mr. Outside paired with Doc Blanchard’s Mr. Inside in the days when it took Army a season, rather than a decade, to win 10 games, Davis led the Cadets to national championships in 1944, 1945 and a shared title in 1946. Davis finished his time at West Point with 59 touchdowns and 4,129 yards, winning the Heisman Award in 1946 after finishing second in 1944 and 1945. Davis also helped the Los Angeles Rams to the NFL title in 1951 before a knee injury ended his career in 1952.

The Wright Snuff
Teresa Wright, one of ten actors to have been nominated for both a Supporting and Lead Acting Academy Award in the same year for their achievements in two different movies, has died at the age of 86. Wright made an immediate impact in Holllywood, racking up three Academy Award nominations for her first three film performances: going toe-to-toe with Bette Davis in The Little Foxes, balancing Gary Cooper’s wooden acting and negligible baseball skills with a tedious subplot involving Lou Gehrig’s mother in Pride of the Yankees, and playing Greer Garson's daughter-in-law in Mrs. Miniver, netting the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. She also appeared in Oscar-winner The Best Years of Our Lives, was Marlon Brando’s first leading lady in The Men, and ferreted out her murderous uncle Joseph Cotton in Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt. Wright decided to torpedo her career by refusing to take part in promotions she deemed beneath her or any publicity that played on her girlish charms. As a result, her film career after 1950 is about as noteworthy as Pia Zadora’s, highlighted by such admirable fair as Flood!, The Happy Ending, the first remake of The Miracle on 34th Street, and a very special Christmas episode of The Love Boat.

Meet the Maker

Or
Meet St. Peter
(Tip o’ the cap to Monty)
Nicole DeHuff, who appeared in the 2000 film Meet the Parents, has died of pneumonia at the age of 30. Reportedly her condition was the result of repeated sinus infections suffered after breaking a nose while filming the volleyball scene with Ben Stiller. DeHuff had visited the hospital twice for treatment before her death and was sent home both times, but really, medical malpractice is the fault of the legal profession.

Gonna go back in the grime
Car Developer John DeLorean, whose unique approach to venture capitalism killed his dream of bringing cars with goofy-looking gull wing doors to the American public, has died at the age of 80. DeLorean had developed the first muscle car, the GTO, and was a rising star with GM in the 1970s when he struck out on his own to start a car company in automotive hotbed Northern Ireland. The company produced less than 9,000 cars before DeLorean was nailed trying to sell cocaine to raise money for his venture. Of course, one of those cars ended up in the hands to Dr. Emmett Brown, who turned it into a time machine in Back to the Future.

Partain is such sweet sorrow
Paul Partain, portrayer of one of the most annoying characters in film history, has died of cancer at the age of 58. As wheelchair-bound Franklin Hardesty, he was stabbed by a hitchhiker, then ends up on the wrong end of a power tool in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but really, who wasn’t rooting for Leatherface to finish off this whiny inaction hero?

Flickered out
While the name Sy Wexler may not ring a bell, harken back to those days of darkened classrooms and flickering 16-mm films and you’ve no doubt sampled his work. Wexler died at the age of 88, leaving behind a film library that includes such edge-of-the-seat thrillers as Squeak the Squirrel, Fire Science, Clinical Applications of Microporous Tape and The Case of a Persian Student With Painless Hemoptysis. Wexler helped baby boomers make sense of their bodies from the cradle to the grave, with Teeth Are for Life, How a Hamburger Turns Into You, Early Marriage, Happy Family Planning, Venereal Disease: Why Do We Still Have It?, Fertilization and Birth, Smoking and Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure and Congestive Heart Failure. In the days before internet porn, Wexler’s films were where most kids learned their sex education.

Ain’t that Broadcaster cold?
Chuck Thompson, hall of fame broadcaster for the Baltimore Orioles, has died at the age of 83. The unabashed homer was the voice of the Orioles for more than 50 years, and had been the voice of the Baltimore Colts for 30 years before the moving vans arrived in the middle of the night. The 1993 baseball hall of fame inductee’s best known catchphrase was the nonsensical, “Ain’t that beer cold?” to punctuate an Orioles homer or Colts touchdown.