Bury Van Down By the River

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Pianissimo

(Props to Monty)

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The grim reaper took him by the hand and said get in my Chevy, Van

(Courtesy of  Phil)

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Just another Vanish Monday

(Further fanfare for Phil)
Van Cliburn, who tickled more ivory than an elephant’s masseuse, has died of bone cancer at the age of 78. The up-and-coming pianist became an overnight sensation when he won the 1958 Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow, defeating Russian masters and captivating the Russian audience in what was seen as a cultural bridge at the height of the Cold War. Like Rocky IV with pianos. Cliburn was honored with a ticker tape parade in Manhattan, and he began performing to sold-out halls all over the country and then his image, as so often happens with classical pianists, was splayed everywhere – lunch boxes, cartoons, Pez dispensers, a special commemorative editions of Operation, where you could remove an ear for music. Cliburn’s pianostroika struck such a chord that when he returned to Moscow in 2011 as a judge of the Tchaikovsky competition, he was mobbed in the streets by fans who remembered his performance. Cliburn played for every president from Eisenhower to Obama and was the first classical recording artist to have an album, with his recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 selling more than 1 million copies.

Hill Over Dale

Dale Robertson, the poor man’s Ben Johnson, has died of lung cancer at the age of 89. Well known on the Western series and movies that filled screens large and small in the 1950s and 1960s, Robertson starred in Tales of Wells Fargo, focusing on protecting stagecoaches and trains from criminals and not cards getting stuck in ATMs, and in Iron Horse as a card player who won a railroad, as often happens with public trusts. On Dallas, he played an old friend of Jock’s who put the moves on Miss Ellie after she had Jock declared legally dead, which led to the reading of his will, which pitted brother against brother for control of Ewing Oil for the umpteenth time, until J.R. chased him off. As JJ Starbuck, he was a vital part of criminal justice in 1980s TV, where beleaguered/corrupt/inept police were unable to solve crimes without the help of a cagey old billionaire cowboy, or a mystery writer, or a dwarf toymaker, or a mystery man and a talking car, or military prisoners on the lam, or master ninjas, or handsome PIs, or robot-aided helicopter tour operators, or wizened southern lawyers, or a shape-shifting NYU professor, or a former government operative, or a hologram come to life.

Surgeon General's Mourning

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Flown the Koop

(Props to Shawn)

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The Koop de Grace Has Been Delivered

(Kudos to Chris N)
C. Everett Koop, the only unindicted member of the Reagan Cabinet, has died at the age of 96. An early casualty in the Republican war on science and reason, he was pilloried by conservatives for suggesting that education and condoms could do more to stem the spread of the AIDS epidemic than ignorance and prayers. Although the deeply religious Koop opposed homosexuality, he insisted that young people did not deserve a death sentence because they didn’t know how the virus spread. Originally appointed because Reagan thought he would use the office to condemn abortions, Koop refused to make his office about his religion, declining to issue a report requested by the administration about the harmful psychological effects of abortion on mothers, citing the complete lack of compelling evidence. Koop also didn’t win any friends by taking on Big Tobacco by blaming “the merchants of death” for more than 300,000 preventable deaths a year and forcing cigarette packaging to bear the Surgeon General’s warning. Before Koop, the Surgeon General was a thankless job with a miniscule budget and even less authority. Koop used his bully pulpit to establish himself as the nation’s moral authority, with his Amish-style beard and dress uniform helping convince the nation that anyone that square must be legit.

Warm Up the Buss! Warm Up the Buss!

(An epitaphany shared with Monty)

Or

Buss-ted

Jerry Buss, who made the Hall of Fame by signing the paychecks of some of the best players in NBA history, has died of cancer at the age of 80 as even he couldn’t bear to watch the 2012-13 Los Angeles Lakers any more. Since buying the Lakers in 1979, Buss, a real estate magnate and holder of a doctorate in physical chemistry, built the team into one of the NBA’s flagships, ranked as the second-most valuable franchise by Forbes at $1 billion. Of course, the New York Knicks are the most valuable, so apparently stockpiling talent and winning championships has nothing to do with franchise value. With Magic Johnson scoring a $25 million, 25-year contract after his second year in the league, the Lakers thrilled fans with their Showtime offense, while the Laker Girls, led by Paula Abdul and Tina Yothers, kept fans distracted on off nights. Lakers games became must-see events, with celebrity fans like Jack Nicholson and Dian Cannon holding courtside seats. Buss also owned The Forum, later The Great Western Forum, the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, the Los Angeles Strings of World TeamTennis, the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA and the Los Angeles Lazers of the Major Indoor Soccer League.

She Did What She Had To Do

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She Won’t Be Staying the Night

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Not So Tough

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She’s Not Still Here

Mindy McCready, country music’s Amy Winehouse, brought a country song lyrics to life, shooting her dog and herself at the age of 38. Her 5 studio albums including 3 Top Ten country hits, including Guys Do It All the Time, Ten Thousand Angels and A Girl's Gotta Do (What a Girl's Gotta Do). Her life since then would fill a country music box set: she claimed that Roger Clemens was injecting her with an illegal penis when she was 15; 3 suicide attempts; a sex tape for sale on Vivid Entertainment; a boyfriend arrested for attempted murder after choking and beating her; arrests for buying OxyContin, DUI, identity theft, two probation violations and battery and resisting arrest after slapping her mom around her mother; having both her kids taken into foster care; her second child’s father shooting and killing himself at her home on the same porch where she shot herself and 3 overdoses - which led her to appear on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. She is the 5th former rehabber from the series to die, suggesting that Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous may have a better approach than trying to get clean with a camera in your face around the clock on America’s Next Top Overdose or Shooting Up With the Former Stars. 

There’s No Need to Fear, But Underdog's Creator’s Death May Yield a Tear

W. Watts Biggers, who decided what the world needed was a pill-popping humble but lovable Shoeshine Boy who knew his way around a rhyming couplet, has died at the age of 85. Biggers and Chet Stover were advertising executives who tinkered with cartoon ideas on the side and decided to take on Jay Ward and Bill Scott, creators of “Rocky & Bullwinkle.” Through more than 100 cartoons, Underdog made puppy eyes in his chaste flirtations with reporter Sweet Polly Purebred and engaged in dogged pursuit of enemies like Simon Bar Sinister and Riff Raff, creating a cartoon classic worthy of an execrable live-action movie remake starring the formerly interesting Jason Lee. As if that wasn’t enough evidence of his staying power, an Underdog balloon has been a fixture in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade since 1965.

 

How’m I Dying?

(Props to Greg)

 

Or

How'd I Do?

Ed Koch, who started the conversion of New York’s Time Square from crime-ridden hellhole to tourist-infested hellhole, has died of congestive heart failure at the age of 88. In the 1980s, the only thing New Yorkers could agree about more than their smug and undeserved sense of superiority was Koch, as the lifelong Democrat won re-election in 1981 with 75% of the vote and 78% in 1985. Like most politicians of the 1980s, he was embarrassingly negligent in recognizing and reacting to the AIDS epidemic. Given the tabloid speculation about his own sexuality, this could have been either a betrayal or a means to avoid further scrutiny of it. In any event, can having fewer New Yorkers ever really be considered a bad thing? When the New York Giants won the Super Bowl in 1986, he refused to accord them the honor of a ticker tape parade because the team had moved to (and paid taxes in) New Jersey, declaring, "If they want a parade, let them parade in front of the oil drums in Moonachie."