Gone Too Far

Or
DJ AM's Golden Silence
(Props to Phil)
Adam Michael Goldstein, aka DJ AM, who inexplicably became famous playing other people’s music, died of a drug overdose or suicide, at the age of 36, in a brilliant cross-promotional effort with the fall release of The Final Destination. Goldstein survived a plane crash in September 2008 that killed 4 other passengers. Travis Barker, good luck. He had recently finished filming an MTV reality show called Gone Too Far in which he and concerned families staged interventions for drug addicts.

Over and Dunne

Dominick Dunne, who made the ground-breaking discovery that rich people don’t experience the judicial system quite the same way that the rest of society does, has died at the age of 84. The spoiled rich kid was accustomed to the ways of the social elite, as the latest generation of a stately family and with a father who was a prominent heart surgeon, and had some experience with celebrity as film and television producer and director. Then in 1982, karma kicked back, as his daughter, actress Dominique Dunne, was murdered. Dunne chronicled the trial in the article "Justice: A Father's Account of the Trial of his Daughter's Killer" for Vanity Fair, and found himself a niche, chronicling the murders and/or trials of Alfred Bloomingdale’s mistress Vicki Morgan, banking heir William Woodward, Jr., O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bulow, Michael Skakel, William Kennedy Smith, and those wacky Menendezes (Menendi?). Surprisingly for such an upstanding segment of journalism, Dunne occasionally went too far, and in 2005 had to apologize and buy the forgiveness of Gary Condit after accusing him of killing his intern Chandra Levy.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight (and Tomorrow, and the Night After That…)

(Kudos to Joy)

Or
The Last Splash
(Props to Don)

Or
Ted’s Dead Baby. Ted’s Dead
(Additional Accolades for Don)

Or
Has Anybody Seen the Deceased’s Pants?
(More Merit for Don)
Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy, whose largesse screwed up driving in Boston for the better part of two decades, has succumbed to brain cancer at the age of 77, only the 4th Kennedy man to die of natural causes in the last 150 years. His death is seen as a blow to his goal for health care reform, as once again he fails to see something through. He had presidential aspirations from 1972-1984, but never got close. He failed at his first marriage. He wanted to block Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court nomination, but was cowed into silence by his own sexual misadventures and his nephew’s ongoing rape trial. About the only thing he ever finished off was Mary Jo Kopechne. But that’s all water under the bridge. Overcoming a lifetime of family dinners with the unspoken thought, “4 sons and you’re what I have left?” Kennedy was the third-longest serving senator in U.S. history, authoring more than 300 bills that became law and shepherding many more through the legislative process. He was an outspoken champion of liberal causes, including immigration reform, health care, anti-Apartheid, the Americans with Disabilities Act, education and civil rights. His early and vocal opposition to the 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court helped ensure his defeat, and by Bork’s own admission, ensured the Roe v. Wade decision would not be overturned. Other career highlights – taking Holy Communion at the Vatican from Pope Pius XII, getting a letter of interest from the Green Bay Packers after his junior year at Harvard, managed JFK’s 1958 Senate campaign, and in 1964 became the only Kennedy to survive a plane crash.

Fill in the Hole Completely and Make Your Mark Dark

Stanley Kaplan is dead as a doornail is an example of a:
a) metaphor b) simile) c) preposition d) gerund

If a train carrying the casket of Stanley H. Kaplan left St. Louis at 6 p.m. traveling 74 miles per hour, when would it reach the New Montefiore Cemetery in Manhattan, 955 miles away?

Lisa Kudrow::fern as Stanley H. Kaplan::
a) root b) tree c) eagle d) the Space Needle in Seattle

Answer: A – both are underground

Stanley Kaplan, who got rich on people being dumb, has died of heart failure at the age of 90. Starting out in 1946 when a student asked for help on the SATs, Kaplan built a test-preparation empire that comprised 120 teaching centers and nearly 100,000 students when he sold it for $45 million when he sold it to The Washington Post. In the current climate that is obsessed with test scores at the expense of being able to think, the company recorded $2.3 billion in revenue last year.

Stopped Ticking

Don Hewitt, the man who decided the perfect ending to the weekend was to be admonished by a deranged old man with eyebrows that could conceal firearms about something no one else on the planet cares about, has died at the age of 86. Following the death of Walter Cronkite, it appears to be dangerous days for the giants of CBS journalism, so at least Dan Rather is safe. As a news director and producer, he helped shape the careers and broadcasts of Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow and Douglas Edwards, and guided coverage of the Nixon-Kennedy debate, JFK’s assassination and the NASA program of the 1960s, but he’s best known for creating the definitive news magazine in 60 Minutes. Luckily, he came up with the concept in an era when investigative journalism meant more than Chris Hansen walking into the kitchen and disappointing middle aged guys who’ve never see an episode of Law & Order : SVU. The show brought together skilled interviewers and reporters to alternate between catching Watergate conspirators and cigarette manufacturers and revealing interviews with celebrities like Barbra Streisand and Larry the Cable Guy. By showing how non-scripted programming and hidden cameras could be hugely profitable with minimal overhead, Hewitt helped usher in reality TV, a crime no number of Emmys could conceal.

Crossfired

Or
The Other Prince of Fucking Darkness
Robert Novak, well known Grinch lookalike, has died of brain cancer at the age of 78, a crushing blow when the current health care debate could really use his level-headed, even-handed approach to the events of the day. As a columnist published in more than 300 papers his career had taken him as far from his cub reporter beginnings as it had from reason and civil discourse. He once griped that his Thanksgiving dinner had been ruined by the sight of so many homeless people on television, but later got his revenge by running one down in his Corvette, then denied he had seen the man splayed across his windshield. At the same time he was bashing anyone who dared question the Bush administration, he was outing Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA officer, yet somehow his decision to jeopardize a member of the U.S. intelligence community “in a time of war,” to use the justification du jour, did not make him a pariah in the patriotic right community. He also managed to evade investigation during Louis Libby’s trial for perjury about releasing the name, while The New York Times’ Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify, and later admitted to having confirmed sources that had outed themselves. During the Nixon years, he and his columnist partner Rowland Evans had written more than 120 columns on the Watergate burglary, and broke a story detailing a White House plot to blame the CIA for the break-in. He also helped bury George McGovern after he had won the Democratic primary with a column where he said a Democratic senator had discussed McGovern’s support for abortion rights, legalizing marijuana and providing amnesty to draft dodgers. He refused to name the source, prompting many to accuse him of making up the quote, but in 2007 he attributed it to Thomas Eagleton, McGovern’s one-time running mate before getting dropped from the ticket for having undergone electroshock therapy to treat depression. Would such a paragon of journalistic integrity who only names sources when it’s convenient for him have simply made up a story after Eagleton was dead and couldn’t refute it? Hey, I just report, you decide. A regular on CNN programs including “The Capital Gang,” “Crossfire” and “Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields,” he left the network in 2006 after storming off a live set during an argument with Democratic wingnut James Carville to avoid discussing the Plame investigation.

Guitar Done

Or
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
(Props to Jon and Shawn on the shared epitaphany)

Or
Strung Out

Or
Guitar Zero

Or
Les is No More
(Cap tip to Jon and Fred for the shared epitaphany)

Or
Vaya Con Dios
(Word to Shawn)

Or
6 Strings Down
(Can I get a whoop whoop for Fred)
Les Paul, the pastiest jazz guitarist ever, and the only one without needle marks, has died at the age of 94. He could play in any genre – country, jazz, pop and rock, and accompanied some of the greats – Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Kate Smith, Nat King Cole, Rudy Vallee, and the Andrews Sisters, but may be better known as the father of the electric guitar, inventing “the log,” a wooden board with a guitar neck, 6 strings and two pick-ups, in his recording studio/laboratory in the 1940s. He later tucked it into the body of a traditional guitar because it looked like a shop class assignment turned in by a kid who ate a lot of paste. So devoted was he to the guitar that after a 1948 car accident shattered his elbow so badly that once it was set, it would be immovable, he had it set at slightly less than a 90 degree angle so he could still play. By tinkering with amplification, he invented overdubbing and multitrack recording to turn his wife Mary Ford into as many voices as he needed, and in the 1950s invented the 8-track. In 1952, the Gibson company hired him to design a Les Paul model guitar, which helped usher in rock and/or roll. He continued performing until shortly before his death in a one man show that was part comedy, part jazz standards, part stories of music history, along the way having to re-learn how to play because of advancing arthritis.

Riding with Aunt Edna

(An epitaphany in spirit shared with Phil)

Or
Long Duk Gone
(Props to Phil)

Or
Uncle Kick the Bucket
(Additional accolades for Phil)

Or
Planes, Trains, and Hearses
John Hughes, the writer-director who made the baseless assumption that teenagers were people worthy of respect, admiration and their own soundtrack, has died of a heart attack at the age of 59. Drawing on the minutiae of everyday life, like the hassles of modern travel, relatives dying in the middle of cross country trips, horny exchange students, and computer-generated supermodels, Hughes created a world where teen crises like playing hooky were treated with the same significance as starting a global thermonuclear war, where a date with the most popular girl in school warranted the same gravitas as a horribly disfiguring disease or getting turned into a giant human-fly hybrid. After writing for adults in The National Lampoon, Hughes turned his attention to the brains, athletes, basket cases, princesses and criminals as the writer-director of Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, and Some Kind of Wonderful, making stars of Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, John Cusack, Emilio Estevez, Robert Downey Jr. and Judd Nelson, known collectively as the Brat Pack, and as a result, he wisely avoided the Hague. Services will be held in Shermer, Ill., assuming anyone can find it.

If I Cannot Live, Let Me Be Brave in the Attempt

(Kudos to Don)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the white sheep of the Kennedy clan, has died at the age of 88 after knocking on death’s door more times than Emily Dickinson (and looking about as lively). A chance phone call in 1962 at her Maryland home led to her life’s calling, and what may be the most lasting legacy for any member of the Kennedy family. Some crank probably looking for a hand-out called the house to whine about the lack of camps for the handicapped, and Eunice told her if she could get her kid to the house, she’d start her own. Later that year, she wrote an article in The Saturday Evening Post about her own mentally retarded sister Rosemary, which had been a closely held family secret – ironically the least objectionable of the family secrets that have been aired over the years. Camp Shriver grew, with Eunice doing everything from organizing the event to jumping in the pool to give swimming lessons. Thankfully, her efforts at swimming lessons were more successful than her brother Teddy’s. The camp sowed the seeds for the Special Olympics, which debuted in 1968 with 1,000 athletes on Chicago’s Soldier Field, and now totals 3 million in more than 180 countries. The games were unique in calling attention to mentally retarded children, then still largely kept out of sight, and in encouraging physical activity, when the prevailing wisdom was to keep them from hurting themselves.

Lone Wolf Quade

Lone Wolf Quade
John Quade, an ugly, mean-looking character actor who tried roughing up Clint Eastwood in several films, has died at the age of 71. He lent his dreadful countenance and menacing drawl to a number of roles, often as southern thugs or corrupt sheriffs, but is best remembered as the lead comanchero in The Outlaw Josey Wales, part of the gang that returns to the Man With No Name’s adopted town in High Plains Drifter and Cholla, leader of the Black Widows in Every Which Way But Loose and Any Which Way You Can. Eastwood told him he hired him for his face, and was thrilled to find he could actually act. A regular fixture on TV, Quade harassed B.A. and Face Man and Howling Mad and Hannibal, the cops on Hill Street, Manimal, Colt Seavers, Quincy, Jon Baker and Frank Poncherello, BJ McKay and the Bear, the Duke boys, Dan Tanna, Buck Rogers, Tony Baretta, Pepper Anderson, Sabrina and Kelly and Kris, Jamie Sommers, David Starsky and Kenneth Hutchinson, Marshal Sam McCloud, Jim Rockford, Stewart McMillan and his Mrs., Dusty and Mr. Callahan, Robert Ironside, the Cartwrights and Marshall Dillon.

A Face in the Ground

Budd Schulberg, who managed to name names during the Red Scare without the lasting taint, has died at the age of 95. Best remembered for the Oscar-winning screenplay to On the Waterfront, Schulberg also wrote a short story helped make Andy Griffith a star in A Face in the Crowd, which showed a country singer going from power-mad star to populist demagogue. He had some successful collaborations, like having a screenplay re-written by a drunken F. Scott Fitzgerald and arresting Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl while working with the Office of Strategic Services after World War II. He joined the Communist Party after a trip to the Soviet Union in 1934, but when he felt pressure to make his screenplays meet Party agendas, he left and later told the House Un-American Activities Committee who he’d left behind, including Ring Lardner, Jr. and Herbert Biberman. His was seen as a principled stand against free speech by many, letting him keep his career. He used his screenplay for On the Waterfront to help make his case, as Father Barry argued, “Getting the facts to the public,” the priest continues. “Testifying for what is right against what is wrong. What’s ratting to them is telling the truth for you. Can’t you see that?” That was actually his second attempt to piss off Hollywood, with his debut novel about back-stabbing and ambition in 1941’s “What Makes Sammy Run?,” considered such an accurate indictment that Schulberg was told he’d never work in the movies.

The 50-yard Indoor Morgue

The Arena Football League has bounced its last field goal off the cross bars after 21 thoroughly goofily entertaining seasons. Jim Foster came up with the concept while watching indoor soccer and in 1987 introduced the 50-yard indoor war, with giant nets on either side of the crossbar that kept errant passes and kicks in play, and ironman play, with only the quarterback not going both ways. The game was heavy on passing and scoring, and at a 1995 game I attended, the St. Louis Stampede beat the Milwaukee Mustangs 67-65 to set the league record for most combined points in a game. The record fell the next day. For many of the league’s early years, the fun of the offseason was guessing which teams would be closing up shop permanently and which would relocate, like the Gladiators who moved from East Rutherford, NJ to Las Vegas to Cleveland. All told the league included more than 60 teams in 49 cities. But in recent years, it seemed the league had turned the corner, with TV deals, celebrity owners like Jon Bon Jovi and John Elway, franchise stability and last season teams averaged 13,000 fans, with the last league champion Philadelphia Soul routinely drawing more than 16,000. As consolation, the Soul get to hold onto the Arena Bowl trophy. Ironically the NBC deal actually hurt the league as it included a partnership with the network, which resulted in little to no coverage by ESPN. Not that the worldwide leader in sports would be anything but a paragon of journalistic ethics. Celebrity ownership also pulled the league more toward the mainstream, and free substitution replaced the ironman ethos. The league had suspended the 2009 season citing the economic downturn, but decided the pull the plug last week.

Corazon Attack

(Props to Monty)

Or
Corazon Aquino Has Left the Planet
(Additional accolades for Monty)
Corazon Aquino, who rode to power in the Philippines as part of a popular coup over legally elected president Ferdinand Marcos, has died of colon cancer at the age of 76. The benevolent Marcos had governed the island nation, with Imelda, his humble wife of simple tastes, for 20 years when the people took to the streets in 1986 to replace him with manipulative usurper Aquino, who played on sympathies after her husband Benigno was accidentally killed by several bullets to the head after returning from exile. With Aquino blazing the trail for setting aside elections, the Phillipines have since seen two more attempted coups, including a successful one in 2001.