Misanthrope, Philanthrope, Chance to Grope

The Big Kill

Or
Spillane Takes a Dirt Nap
(Props to Monty)

Or
Hammered
(Further accolades for Monty)

Or
Survival...Zero
(Kudos to Greg)

Or
Kiss Me Dead
(Greg does us another solid)

Or
Tomorrow I Die. No, Wait, Make That Right Now.
(A final tip o’the gumshoe cap to Greg)
Mickey Spillane, aces with his Smith Corona in dishing about leggy broads and pig-eyed punks getting iced, got 86ed by the Big Man Upstairs at the age of 88. Regularly getting the bum’s rush from critics, Spillane’s whiskey-soaked tales of cops and crooks and the broads who loved them sold more than 200 million books, and he wrote 7 of the top 10 selling books of all time. Spillane stuck in the national craw with his 12 Mike Hammer stories that were the basis of two TV shows 30 years apart. In addition to his book noir staples, Spillane also wrote a number of award-winning books for kids, presumably with a little less sex and violence. He came by the hard-boiled edge honestly, serving as a federal agent who helped break up a narcotics ring, a bust that left him with scars from two gunshots and a knife slash. Most probably remember his self-parodying appearances with a dame on each arm in gumshoe garb in 110 commercials for Miller Lite, an impotent potable no self-respecting Spillane private dick would be caught dead drinking.
Greg’s been waiting for Spillane to Kiss Off Deadly for three years and with the solo hit moves into second place. Spillane was the 100th hit in the 4+ plus years of the GHI.

You Win Some, You Lose Some
(Monty on the lieutenant governor beat)
Win Rockefeller, the low-key billionaire rancher turned lieutenant governor of Arkansas, has died of a rare myeloproliferative disorder, at the age of 57. The great-grandson of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, Win was a college dropout, thwarted state trooper and car salesman before scoring his inheritance. He then got a degree in ranch management, stepped up the philanthropy and when Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker got convicted of corruption and was replaced by lieutenant governor Mike Huckabee, Win was elected to complete Huckabee’s term. He was re-elected to the part-time post in 1998 and 2002 and had announced his intention to run for governor before his diagnosis. With a fortune of $1.2 billion, Win could have bought each of Arkansas’ 2.6 million residents about 30 books a piece and possibly done something about the worst literacy rate in the country.

Tits Up
(Props to Mark)

Or
Wings and a Prayer
(An epitaphany shared with Monty)
Robert H. Brooks, who built an empire on men’s love of hot wings and big boobs, has died of natural causes at the age of 69. Brooks started a natural foods company before figuring out tight shirts and short shorts would turn a larger profit than free range alfalfa. He bought the Hooters chain and with a mantra of “Delightfully tacky, yet unrefined” expanded to 425 restaurants worldwide.