The King and Eye Shadow

Faye-d Away

Or
Faye-th No More

Or
On To the Rouge Morgue

Or
Death Mascara
Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, the evangelista who introduced the trowel to the make-up kit and was the only straight man JM J Bullock ever had any use for, has died at the age of 65. Tammy Faye’s make-up slathered face was a perfect icon for the over-the-top, hypocritical ‘80s as she sat beside her preacher man/ Mel Torme-lookalike husband first begging for money for their Praise the Lord Network then begging for forgiveness through charges of embezzlement from said network and then stories of his tawdry affair with skanky church secretary Jessica Hahn. In good times and in bad, Tammy Faye was an easy cryer, and the resulting streaks of mascara gave the impression she was taking part in some type of tribal ritual. Enough mascara got in her eyes that she didn’t seem to notice her lavish lifestyle funded by millions siphoned off the PTL books. Because America refuses to let the ‘80s die, she kept making comebacks, alongside Bullock on the JM and Tammy Faye trainwreck of a talk show that lasted about 6 weeks in 1996, in appearances parodying her image as an eyebrow-tattooing pioneer as a make-up lady on Roseanne and then as mommy to overly adorned Mimi Bobeck on The Drew Carey Show, and most recently in the VH1 freakshow The Surreal Life alongside Erik Estrada, Vanilla Ice and porn legend Ron Jeremy.

Seven Pooligans make up ground with the hit. Greg’s Team Quincy moves into 3rd, Kirsti’s You've Got a Date With an Angel (of Death) takes 8th, Michelle’s Take My Life assumes 9th, my The Family Plot Thickens slips into 14th, Jen climbs into 18th, Lauren joins the dogpile at 27th and Michelle’s I’m Not Dead… Yet takes a baby step into 42nd.

Shah Long, Farewell, Zahir Says Good Night
Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last man to govern an Afghanistan that could go a week without half its citizenry trying to kill each other, has died at the age of 92. He assumed the throne when his father was gunned down in 1933 and lost it in a bloodless coup led by his cousin while out of the country for medical treatment. The cousin was murdered a few years later when the communists took over, then the Soviets invaded, then when they withdrew a civil war started that led to the Taliban’s rise to power. Clearly a country with a strong democratic tradition to restore. Zahir Shah’s rule was known as a peaceful 40 years with no economic development other than opium production. Rather than raising a stink about returning to his rubble-strewn heroin den, he lived the good life in Italy for almost 30 years, begrudgingly returning when the Taliban were outsted in 2002.

Michelle and Joy missed the Kabul’s Eye on this one, dropping him after 2004 and 2006, respectively, costing themselves 4th and 5th place, also respectively.

This Bird Has Flown

(Props to Mark)
Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson – call name Lady Bird –inspiration for Hank Hill’s beloved bloodhound and the architect of the JFK assassination, has died at the age of 94. Lady Bird was a king maker, taking $10,000 from her family’s estate to bankroll her husband Lyndon Baines Johnson’s early political career, softening his public appearance and tone in political disputes, then when she saw the prospects of his career ending within sight of the brass ring when JFK had discussed kicking him off the ticket, she drew on her family’s connections within the CIA and Mafia to knock off the 35th president. Her reward: the Highway Beautification Act, which precluded her and her daughters from driving in convertibles. Ironically, despite her act of treason, Lady Bird was one of the longest standing drains on the national coffers, enjoying Secret Service protection longer than anyone in history – 44 years, including her 34 years as First Widow, the longest period in history.

Fourteen Pooligans had been bird-dogging for at least a year, including Mark, whose Beltway Boneyard IV: Foreign Exchange retains first, Nancy, who holds second, Jenni takes 8th, Craig’s the Killer’s Greatest Hits (9th), Monty’s D.C. Dead (13th), Michelle’s Death in the Afternoon (21st), Mike’s Academic Squad (26th), My They Are Become Death (27th), Michelle (29th), Jen(30th), Paul’s Pushing Daisies (30th), and Lauren, Warren’s List 2 and Dawn’s Chris’ Cardinal Rule (45th). Not following the rule: Joy and James, who gave up on the old girl after 2006.

Lady Bird was the most frequent pick in GHI history, appearing on 54 lists, and with her death there are only 10 remaining who have been picked in each of our 6 years. We’ve also notched 97 cumulative hits this year, our best showing ever. In previous news that I’ve been ignoring…

Yakety Sax – Don’t Talk Back
Or

This Boots was Made for Burying
Boots Randolph, the man best known for Yakety Sax, the score for the Benny Hill staple show ending of Benny, the old guy holding a wiz, and the babes in garters, habits, nurses’ uniforms, etc in a sped-up foot chase on a course designed by Billy from Family Circle, has died at the age of 80.

Two Thumbs Six Feet Down
Joe Siegel, film critic on Good Morning, America, has died at the age of 63. Shamelessly parroting The Today Show’s Gene Shalit, Siegel adopted the bushy mustache and pithy approach to selecting which of the bloated celluloid Hollywood monstrosities he would favor.

Shagging Flies
Shag Crawford, a NL umpire for two decades, died Wednesday as an unscheduled part of the Major League All-Star Game festivities. Crawford was the father of 30-year veteran umpire Jerry Crawford and 30-year NBA referee Joey Crawford, so you’ve got to figure nobody took a leak in that house without permission. Shag Crawford umpired the first game in Veterans Stadium history and was brought back for the closing ceremonies, along with his son, where, in true Philly style, they got booed, before the crowd gave way with applause.

Fashionably Late
Liz Claiborne, founder of the titular fashion empire, died at the age of 78. Seriously, am I the only one who thought this was a brand name and not a real person?

Drifting Away
Bill Pinkney, the last survivor of the original members of the musical group The Drifters, died at the age of 81. Pinkey and the other founding members were ground up in the Motown machine and were fired and replaced with the singers who recorded the Drifters’ songs you’ve actually heard of, like Fools Fall in Love, Under the Boardwalk, There Goes by Baby and On Broadway.

Rocky Road
Ernie Driscoll, the man responsible for Stroker Ace, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, Gator, Hooper and Sharkey’s Machine, has died at the age of 75. The former quarterback at North Carolina State was playing against a Florida State squad with a cornerback named Buddy Reynolds in 1957. Wide receiver Dick Christy ran out of bounds, went behind the Florida State bench and then returned to the field, catching a pass from Driscoll in stride and scoring the only points of the game. A confused Reynolds was left on the field, then got screamed at by coach Ted Nugent and left the Gators for good, packing up and moving to Hollywood with a new name, Burt.

The Fat Lady’s Done Singing
Beverly Sills, America’s opera star of the 1960s and 1970s, has died at the age of 78. She, um, sang some stuff in other languages that people seemed to like, and then she stopped.

Bought the Farm
(Kudos to Nancy)
Bob Evans, Sausage King of Sugar Ridge, Ohio, has died at the age of 89. Evans eschewed the old maxim that sausage had to be made from the leftovers after carving other meat products, then founded a chain of restaurants to serve it.

Inside the Green Casket

Jim Mitchell, the man who decided that the scenes of fat hairy guys bumping uglies with overly coiffed and made up skanks should be bridged by plot development, has died at the age of 63. He and his brother Artie were producers of cheap nudie films when they helped bring porn to the mainstream with the 1972 smash Behind the Green Door, starring Marilyn Chambers, who had recently appeared on the Ivory Snow box and now showed a box of her own. The $60,000 they spent to make the movie yielded them more than $25 million. Although the movie was showed at the Cannes Film Festival and was heralded as the Citizen Kane of porn, Jim held no illusions about his role in the movie business, and said “The only Art in this business is my brother,” who he fatally shot in 1991 in a perversely effective intervention to stop Art’s drug abuse. The brothers also owned a sex theater in San Francisco that was managed by Hunter S. Thompson and introduced the lap dance to the West Coast.

Lane to Rest

Or
Date with an Angel
Charles Lane, who appeared in nearly every film since Georges Melies’ A Trip to the Moon, has died at the age of 102. One of the last survivors of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, Lane took up acting at the age of 24, was a founding member of the Screen Actor’s Guild and his performance as narrator of The Night Before Christmas last year gave him at least 338 screen roles. His anonymous ubiquity will be featured in the upcoming documentary You Know the Face. Lane lent his bespectacled hatchet face and distinctive booming nasal voice to innumerable cranky bureaucrats, judges and other short-tempered officials. Among his more notable roles was as the rent collector who pointed out to Lionel Barrymore that this Bailey kid might be on to something in It’s a Wonderful Life, a constable in pursuit of Harold Hill in The Music Man, and the man at the desk of the marriage license office before Elaine learns that insanity doesn’t just run in the family of Mortimer Brewster, it practically gallops, in Arsenic and Old Lace. Most will remember him from his plethora of TV roles, such as Lucille Ball’s frequent foil on I Love Lucy and her boss on the first season of The Lucy Show, scheming railroad agent Homer Bedloe on Petticoat Junction, Foster Phinney on The Beverly Hillbillies and irritated shopkeep Mr. Finch on Dennis the Menace. He seemed ancient in these roles from sitcom reruns of my youth, so it was a surprise to find out that Lane was still alive to receive birthday honors at the TVLand Awards two years ago, where he announced that he was still available for work.

One for my master. One for my dame. And 2.2222222 points for each Pooligan who’s been waiting on Lane. Greg’s Team Quincy moves into 7th, James takes 8th, Shawn’s Team Old assumes 9th, Mike’s Math Squad climbs into 11th, Kirsti’s You’ve Got a Date with an Angel (of Death) slides into 13th, Michelle’s Quick and the Dead leaps into 23rd with Mark’s Angels With Wrinkled Faces III: You'll Never Draw Breath in This Town Again! close behind in 24th and Monty’s Comedy of Terrors and my They Are Become Death lag behind at 37th.

Ito’s All Over

Jerry Ito, best remembered as the evil entrpreneur who kidnaps the most annoying twins in movie history in Mothra, has died at the age of 79. Intended as the film’s villain, when he shut those insufferable singing Doublemint Twins from hell in a box, preventing them from awakening the flying yarnball, it was one of the most magical scenes in cinematic history.

Match Pine Box

Jack Odell, inventor of the Matchbox car, has died at the age of 87. His daughter’s school only allowed toys small enough to fit in a matchbox. Instead, she would bring in matchboxes full of spiders, prompting the self-trained engineer to invent a tiny steamroller as a substitute, the first of more than 12,000 models the company would eventually produce. The toys became a hit in London and later the U.S., and by 1962 more than a million were produced a week, more than all the world’s automakers combined. Although they were usurped by Mattel’s Hot Wheels in the States, Matchbox cars were always the more finely crafted toys, precise in detail, with some models consisting of more than 100 die-cast parts.

Drifting Away

Bill Pinkney, the last survivor of the original members of the musical group The Drifters, died at the age of 81. Pinkey and the other founding members were ground up in the Motown machine and were fired and replaced with the singers who recorded the Drifters’ songs you’ve actually heard of, like Fools Fall in Love, Under the Boardwalk, There Goes by Baby and On Broadway.

This Boots was Made for Burying

Or
Yakety Sax – Don’t Talk Back
Boots Randolph, the man best known for Yakety Sax, the score for the Benny Hill staple show ending of Benny, the old guy holding a wiz, and the babes in garters, habits, nurses’ uniforms, etc. in a sped-up foot chase on a course designed by Billy from Family Circle, has died at the age of 80.

The Fat Lady’s Done Singing

Beverly Sills, America’s opera star of the 1960s and 1970s, has died at the age of 78. She, um, sang some stuff in other languages that people seemed to like, and then she stopped.