Going my Paraguay?

Or
De-sunción

Or
Braz-Ill

Or
Don’t Cry For Me, Paraguay
(Stolen from The Derby Dead Pool, where I’m now in 12th)

Or
Fetti-deadi Alfredo
(Craig, in a departure from South American geography)
Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, a quaint reminder of the days when the United States could keep dirty Third Worlders in line by supporting brutal dictators, has died of a stroke at the age of 93. So beloved by the people of Paraguay no one could bear the thought of running against him as he was re-elected 8 times, Stroessner had originally relieved citizens of the troubles of democracy in 1954 in a military coup and quickly set up a rest home for retired Nazis, including Josef Mengele, as well as sleepaway camps for political prisoners, about 3,000 of whom were accidentally misplaced. Fearing a forgetful population, during his presidency, Stroessner’s name flashed in neon over the capital city, each day’s newspaper featured color photos of him every day and he appeared regularly in a powder blue uniform bedazzled with medals. It was said that were it not for the occasional headless body floating down the Parana River, he seemed like a character straight out of Gilbert & Sullivan. But he hated Communists and voted with the U.S. in the United Nations, so all was forgiven. When one lives by the sword, one often dies by it, and he was ousted in a coup in 1989, fleeing to Brazil, where he ducked extradition on homicide charges.

Three of us expected the generalissimo to be on the stair-guay to Heaven, so my International House of Death moves into second, Craig moves into 14th and Mike’s Team Two pulls into 25th.

The leaderboard as we approach the three-quarter turn:
1st Mike - Team One 3 hits, 60 points
2nd Me (IHOD) 3 hits, 31.66666667 points
3rd Greg – Team Quincy 3 hits, 26.85714286 points
4th Mark – Beltway Boneyard III 3 hits, 17.85714286 points
5th Jen 3 hits, 13.52380953 points

There are a total of 27 selected soon-to-be stiffs on these 5 lists, with only 6 duplicate names, plus there are another 12 entries only 2 hits from taking first, so there is plenty of potential for jockeying for position. We have averaged 3 hits a month this year. If that pace holds, 9 more hits could make things interesting and would set a new GHI record. Guess who’s tired of editing a glaucoma slideset?

Bruno gets "Bacio di tutti baci"
(Props to The Freshman fan, Craig)

Or
Kirb Your Enthusiasm
First the wagon wheel table, now this. Bruno Kirby has joined Curly in pursuit of whatever that index finger pointed skyward was supposed to mean, dying of leukemia at the age of 57. Best remembered as Billy Crystal’s best friend in When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers, Kirby turned in a hysterically unfunny performance as Robin Williams’ sweat-off-a-dead-man’s-balls-sucking boss in Good Morning, Vietnam. In a unique twist, Kirby played the young Clemenza opposite Robert DeNiro’s Vito Corleone, then played Marlon Brando’s luggage-stealing nephew in The Freshman. He also turned in a memorably scary turn as Victor Helms, Sr., a paroled felon out for revenge against Frank Pembleton, the man who put him in jail, on Homicide: Life on the Street. He directed the H: LOTS episode in which Det. Munch plays the telltale heart angle on a low-level drug dealer turned poet who sealed a friend behind a wall years earlier. And in a bit of trivia that could resurface this December, he had a bit role in the pilot episode of M*A*S*H.