Diehl or No Diehl William Diehl, war hero turned author of mayhem, has died of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 81. Diehl had a knack for being in the right place at the right time – babysat by Mae West, witness to the explosion of the Hindenburg, ball turret gunner on a B-24 during World War II and not only surviving but earning the Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart and Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, surviving having his throat slashed while accompanying Martin Luther King on a trip to Mississippi. Still, it was a midlife crisis that led to his 9 thrillers, most notably Sharky’s Machine and Primal Fear, both turned into major motion pictures, or as major as a Burt Reynolds movie can be.
Don’t worry, take a dirt nappy Robert McFerrin Sr., the first black man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, has died of a heart attack at the age of 85. McFerrin was also the father of conductor-vocalist Bobby McFerrin, arguably his least creative production. McFerrin won the Met national audition in the less than enlightened year of 1953, debuting in Aida in 1955, the first of 10 operatic roles at the Met in three years.
Caught the Westbound Train Steam Train Maury, Life King of the Hobos, has died at the age of 89. Born Maurice W. Graham, Maury recognized he was among the last of a dying breed of itinerant men living outside society’s norms with friends like the Pennsylvania Kid, who shaved with a piece of glass from a Coke bottle. He wrote a book of his travels, was a founding member of the Hobo Museum and helped establish the Hobo Museum in Britt, Iowa. At the National Hobo Convention in Britt, he was crowned king five times — in 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978 and 1981 — and, in 2004, was anointed grand patriarch. In the 1930s Britt originally established the convention as a joke and were stunned when reporters showed up to cover the event as an actual news story. The event grew to a four-day affair that drew tens of thousands. With increased security making it hard to get into the railcars that were the preferred mode of transportation, the life of the hobo, defined by Maury as “a man of the world, who travels to see and observe and then shares those views with others,” has become increasingly fleeting. Maury showed that togetherness was not the key to a good marriage, as he left a wife of 69 years. He hopped his first freight in 1971 and didn’t return or talk to Wanda for a decade.
A Little Less Pep in His Step Willie Pep, a hall-of-fame featherweight boxer and one of the best fighters of the 20th century, has died at the age of 84. Relying on speed and finesse, Pep compiled a record of 230-11-1 with 65 KOs during his 26-year career that not surprisingly left him in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. Pep’s style was essentially to evade punches until his opponent either got frustrated into a mistake or exhausted themselves with blows thrown where Pep no longer was. He once won a round in which he didn’t throw a single punch just to prove he could. For Pep, the skinny little men in the ring were no challenge, as this was a man doctors didn’t expect to walk again following a plane crash, let alone box for another 19 years.
A Little Dob Will Do You Pat Dobson, a one-year wonder and trivia question answer for the Baltimore Orioles, has died at the age of 64. In 1971, the Orioles became the second team in history with 4 20-game winners, with Dobson, Jim Palmer, Dave McNally and Mike Cuellar. Dobson was the Fredo of the staff, left off the All-Star team that season, although he did make it the following year in the middle of an 18-loss season. After the season, he made a touring All-Star team that visited Japan, and threw a 7-inning perfect game, for which his hosts gave him a box of chocolates. McNally received a stereo system and a television. Dobson also spent most of his career being mistaken for Kansas City Royals pitcher Chuck Dobson. As a pitching coach, Dobson tutored his charges on how to be a one-year wonder, achieving his greatest success with 1982 AL Cy Young winner Pete Vukovich and 1989 NL Cy Young winner Mark Davis, both quickly returning to obscurity.
Or Hopefully Whatever Killed Him Was Also Painless
Or The Hopefully Ready Whatever Long Killed Him Alted Was to Also Goodbye Bury Painless In accepting his lifetime achievement award at the Academy Awards in March of this year, Robert Altman said the award was premature as a heart transplant he’d received in 1995 meant he could have another four decades of work ahead of him. Turns out, not so much. Altman, the perennial best director bridesmaid with 5 nominations, has died at the age of 81. If you liked movies that bucked trends and had an elevated self-importance despite often not making a lot of sense while big casts talked over each other, Altman was the director for you. The man who brought us MASH, Nashville, Gosford Park and The Player also gave us Pret-a-Porter, Short Cuts, Dr T. and the Women and Popeye (save it, Greg). Other achievements included Tanner ’88, an HBO miniseries chronicling the campaign journey of a presidential candidate that Altman considered among his best work. Altman got his start in industrial films, then caught the eye of Alfred Hitchcock in his feature debut, which led him to direct several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Other TV gigs followed, including an episode of Bus Stop in which a killer is not caught or punished for his crime at the end of the episode, prompting Congressional hearings and helping to lead to the cancellation of the show.
Still Waters Run Six Feet Deep The knees of quarterbacks of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference can breathe a little easier as Fort Valley State University defensive coordinator Andre “Dirty” Waters shot himself yesterday at the age of 44, apparently unable to accept the choices of Jay Feeley and Jeff Garcia as Eagles’ starting quarterback for the rest of the season. As a member of the Philadelphia Eagles’ record-settting defenses of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Waters delivered some of the hardest hits in the NFL, a few of them even legal. Waters developed a reputation as an ethically challenged defensive back, with blows directed at the knees of Jim Everett, David Archer and, twice in a Monday night game, Rich Gannon, which earned a $10,000 fine. Unfortunately, this overshadowed the career of a player who started as an undersized undrafted free agent out of Cheyney State University and became a key member of one of the greatest defenses in history.
Or Maize and Very Blue With his beloved Michigan an underdog to #1 Ohio State on the eve of this year’s most important college football game ever, legendary Wolverines head coach Bo Schembechler has provided a rallying cry and a new storyline, dying today at the age of 77. Before becoming the idiot that fired iconic Detroit Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell, Schembechler had fashioned quite a career as a Woody Hayes wannabe. At Miami (Ohio) University, Schembechler learned at the feat of the master and the ideal of three yards and a cloud of dust was seared into his brain. After 6 years coaching his alma mater, in 1968 Schembechler was tapped to take over a moribund Michigan squad that had been plastered by archrival Ohio State, now coached by Woody Hayes. The following season, the Buckeyes were undefeated and widely regarded as one of the greatest squads of all time coming into their annual grudge match. The Wolverines won 24-12 in one of the game’s great upsets and started the 10-Year War, in which the two schools each won the Big 10 title 5 times. With teams boasting strong defense, physical play and offensive imagination that consisted of run left or run right, Schembechler never had a losing season and won a total of 235 games, but only 5 (in 17 chances) of them in bowl games, including a 2-8 record in the Rose Bowl. He holds the school record for wins at Michigan with a 194-48-5 record.
Or Friedman-Free Market Principles Kudos to Monty This year the economic world mirrored Dark Crystal. Following the April death of Mystic John Kenneth Galbraith, this week Skekis Milton Friedman died, fittingly from problems with his heart, at the age of 94. The Rutgers University, University of Chicago and Columbia University alum was widely regarded as one of the two most important economists of the 20th century – the other being John Maynard Keynes, whose economic philosophies Friedman repudiated. Whereas Keynes advocated government spending and control of interest rates to avoid inflation, Friedman argued a free market was better able to resolve economic problems. While Keynes’ theories were credited with ending the Great Depression (with an assist from WWII), his mantle remained bare; however, Friedman won the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics, and each year on the anniversary of winning the award, Friedman would take a leak on Keynes’ grave. In his later years, Friedman succumbed to reefer madness and last year was one of 500 economists advocating discussion of legalizing marijuana.
For two Pooligans, it was Friedman at last, Friedman at last, great God almighty, Friedman at last as Craig’s Seriously, Why Won’t You Just Die takes 3rd and Michelle’s Faster, Pussycat, Die! Die! takes 23rd.
Or “Lord, we give you Curly. Try not to piss him off.”
Or The Arcane Shane foe tried in Vain but he couldn't Feign that the Strain was a Pain, so rather than Remain on this Plane, he decided to Wane and to rest he’ll be Lain Monty shows off his rhyming skillz
Or One Hand in the Grave Believe it or Not, Jack Palance wasn’t already dead. But this week he crapped bigger’n you in bed at the age of either 85 or 87, depending on whether you find a grieving family or the Associated Press more believable. Palance appeared in more than 125 movies and TV shows, with his rugged face, reconstructed after a training flight crash, and rasping voice lending a menacing air, but he’s best remembered for a comic turn and an impromptu Jack Lalanne impersonation after winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for City Slickers in 1992. That was Palance’s third nomination, and came almost 40 years after his first, for a husband stalking his wife (Joan Crawford) in Sudden Fear, which he followed a year later as the cold-blooded killer Jack Wilson who couldn’t handle tiny cowboy Alan Ladd in Shane. Before Katrina, he was the biggest threat to New Orleans, as a pneumonic plague-carrying murderer in Panic in the Streets, and he won an Emmy as a prizefighter in the Rod Serling-penned Playhouse 90 classic Requiem for a Heavyweight. But Palance was also an actor who couldn’t say no, and he made some mortgage decisions along the way: Cops and Robbersons, with a post-funny Chevy Chase; Outlaw of Gor, where he killed a man on the set according to Mystery Science Theater 3000; offering Shatnerian/asthmatic line readings while narrating Ripley’s Believe it or Not; City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold as his famous character’s long-lost twin brother, Duke, as well as rasping baddies in such fare as Cyborg 2, Solar Crisis, Tango & Cash, Alien Warning, Hawk the Slayer and Welcome to Blood City. Also, he hopefully will hold the distinction of being the only man ever to portray Attila the Hun, Dracula and Fidel Castro (in Che!).
Two Pooligans benefited from the shift of the Palance of Power: Natalie moves up to 19th and Nancy moved up to 32nd. Palance gave the slip to Mark and Greg, who listed him in 2002, but forgot he was still around. Because it’s fun to remind him, that’s Mark’s 6th premature evacuation.
He took a licking, and stopped ticking
Or TickTickTickTick Props to Monty
Or Zero Minutes Word to your Monty
Or When the Ticking Stops Honorifics for Shawn
Or Watch stopped Cap tip to Craig Ed Bradley, the hipster 60 Minutes correspondents with the earring to prove it, has died of complications of leukemia at 65. Hearing that a 60 Minutes correspondent had died wasn’t surprising. Hearing that it wasn’t Mike Wallace or Morley Safer was. Hearing that it wasn’t Andy Rooney was disappointing. A former Philadelphia teacher and disc jockey in Philadelphia, Bradley began his broadcasting journalism career in the 1970s, covering the fall of Saigon and the equally disastrous Jimmy Carter presidency. In 1981, he joined 60 Minutes, becoming one of the first black journalists featured on network television. Over the next 25 years he set an example for all journalists with his in-depth profiles and hard-hitting investigative work. In his career, he was awarded 19 Emmys, and among his highlights was an exclusive interview with Timothy McVeigh, reporting that indicated officials had ignored warnings of the attack on Columbine High School, and a piece on the AIDS crisis in Africa that led to the donation of free drugs by big pharma. His last segment was on the rape investigation of members of the Duke University lacrosse team. Knowing he was approaching the end, he worked literally feverishly to complete the assignment, and the day it aired he entered Mount Sinai Hospital, where he spent his remaining 2 weeks.
Check. Check. Next to go down, Rain. Additional accolades to Craig, who surprisingly did not include Rain Pryor on his 2007 roster Johnny Sain, curveball specialist and lyrical partner of Warren Spahn with the Boston Braves of the late 1940s, has died at the age of 89. “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain” was the mantra of those two-trick pony teams, and was good enough to take the Braves to the 1948 World Series. Sain bounced around the minors for 6 years before sticking with the Boston Braves, then won 20 games in 4 of his first 6 seasons. After his career ended, Sain became one of the most renowned pitching coaches in baseball, using a positive, encouraging approach to mentor 16 20-game winners over a 17-year stretch. His influence continues to be felt in baseball today in the career of one of his disciples, Leo Mazzone, the eminently successful pitching coach of the Atlanta Braves and now guru to the Baltimore Orioles. Kris Benson will be a 20-game winner any day now.
End of a Cautionary Tale Sid Davis, the man who started the scared straight movement in public service announcements, has died at the age of 90. Davis’ cinematic world was a dark, cold place where children were constantly in peril. Some made it. Some didn’t. In The Dangerous Stranger, several young children were kidnapped, many never to be heard from again. In Live and Learn, Jill was cutting out paper dolls when she ran to see her father, tripped and impaled herself on her scissors. Other children fell off cliffs, were run over by cars and one lost an eye to falling glass shards. In 1961, Boys Beware warned "What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick--a sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious--a sickness of the mind. You see, Ralph was a homosexual: a person who demands an intimate relationship with members of their own sex." Seduction of the Innocent took a girl from her first puff of marijuana to heroin addiction to an arrest for prostitution to “a continued hopeless, degrading existence until she escapes in death." In all, Davis made 180 films, almost all at the bargain price of $1,000 each, and were successful enough to make him a multimillionaire.
And another look at the countdown: 15 days, 11 hours before the start of the 2007 George Harrision Invitational.
William Styron, Mr. Happy Book, has died of pneumonia at the age of 81. Among the daisy-lined, puppy-covered streets where his literary muse wandered included Holocaust survivor’s guilt (Sophie’s Choice), the suicide of a young girl (Lie Down in Darkness) and a violent slave uprising (The Confessions of Nat Turner). Dark thoughts come from dark minds, and for much of his life he battled deep depression and considered suicide. Widely regarded as one of the premier writers of his generation, he won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was alternatively praised for his willingness to tackle on difficult subjects and criticized for writing about things he shouldn’t have written about.
Or Separated From the Living, But Equally Despised
Or Crossing Over the Rubi-Gone
Or The Corpse Wore White (Props to Monty) P.W. Botha, The Man keeping South Africa down for 11 years and providing the political spice to Lethal Weapon 2, has died at the age of 90. Botha was a Nazi sympathizer in WWII, and following the war won a seat in Parliament with an ultra-right party that advocated white supremacy and racial segregation. As prime minister in the late 1970s, he began work on a new Constitution that he said would reform many apartheid policies, but it was little more than a whitewash, as the nation’s black majority continued to be barred from just about everything. Botha became president in 1984, and with domestic unrest roiling and international condemnation, he agreed to meet with Nelson Mandela, the imprisoned leader of the African National Congress. In an address where he was expected to announce major reforms and release Mandela, Botha instead declared that he would not be dictated to and everything is just fine and Mandela remained blackballed in jail. To ensure the country would remain white side up, Botha gave broad powers to the police to put down uprisings, and more than 4,000 were killed and as many as 50,000 imprisoned without trial. After winning re-election in 1987, he suffered a stroke 2 years later and resigned, setting the stage for F.W. de Klerk to become president, and he quickly released Mandela and started enacting the long-promised reforms.
Michelle was the only one who got more than a big smile, big smile out of Botha’s death and her Die Already! squad moves into a tie at 26th.
For Tom the news is more bittersweet, as this is the third member of one of last year’s lists he’s lost. Once again, Rosenberg’s First Rule: Once you’re on a Dead Pool List, there’s only 1 way off it. Course, I’m kicking two ’06 picks to the curb for ’07, so….
