Mock, Paper, Scissors

The smug prick Xristian Xrazy Rick Warren tweeted this moments after Hitchen’s death was announced last night.

For those of you who are unaware, Hitch was a defiant and proud atheist, a lightening rod for the fundies.

One of Hitch’s official portraits from an interview – great sense of self-deprecating humor.

Hitch lost his battle with cancer last night. He was 62. You can find all the plaudits at all of the usual places, especially Vanity Fair. There’s a strange symmetry that Hitch died on the same day that the Iraq War ended, as the two were so intimately linked.

I admired him greatly, even though I disagreed with him on the Iraq war and his strange conversion to being a neocon. I think he commanded the language, his works speaks for itself; Gore Vidal and he would debate live in front of crowds during the early parts of the Iraq war, and always left the stage as friends.

I think he left our stage as friends, too. He will be missed. Infuriatingly missed.

Awww, man, this breaks my heart. Harry Morgan died this morning. He was 96. That’s extra innings in my book. Good man, well-played.

OK, yes, he was on Dragnet, but he made up for it by being on MASH as Col. Sherman T. Potter (for which he earned a well-deserved Emmy Award), and he was sort of the grandpa that I wanted after my grandpa died. I kinda adopted him.

His obit in the times lists a long resume of shows in all of the media, and the people he worked with is astounding:

He went on to appear in “All My Sons” (1948), based on the Arthur Miller play, with Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster; “The Big Clock” (1948), in which he played a silent, menacing bodyguard to Charles Laughton; “Yellow Sky” (1949), with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter; and the critically praised western “High Noon” (1952), with Gary Cooper. Among his other notable films were “The Teahouse of the August Moon” (1956), with Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford, and “Inherit the Wind” (1960), with Spencer Tracy and Fredric March, in which he played a small-town Tennessee judge hearing arguments about evolution in the fictionalized version of the Scopes “monkey trial.” In “How the West Was Won” (1962) he played Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

After a personable performance as Glenn Miller’s pianist, Chummy MacGregor, in “The Glenn Miller Story” (1954), starring James Stewart, he often played softer characters as well as his trademark hard-bitten tough guys. There were eventually a number of comedies on his résumé, among them “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home” (1965), with Shirley MacLaine and Peter Ustinov; “The Flim-Flam Man” (1967), with George C. Scott; “Support Your Local Sheriff!” (1969), with James Garner and Walter Brennan; and “The Apple Dumpling Gang” (1975), a Disney movie with Tim Conway and Don Knotts.

Anyway, he was the sort of character actor who always worked. There was no part too big or too small, he gave everything to all parts and really was a treasure. He will be missed.

(NYTimes)

It seems like just the other day we were laughing at his retirement and now he’s dead.

OK, I have a soft spot for curmedgeons–I admit it. That said, he really should have retired sooner. I hate thinking that you get about two weeks into retirement and then BOOM!

I don’t know of anyone who really thinks that he changed their life, but I’m sure he gave a lot of people a gentle chuckle or two. He was definitely the last of his kind.

A writer’s job is to tell the truth. I believe that if all the truth were known about everything in the world, it would be a better place to live.

Well, said, Mr. Rooney. Maybe you weren’t such a crank after all.

Anyway, 60 Minutes, if you’re reading this, I can do cranky.

Regards,

Tengrain

(Andy Rooney Dead at 92)

The $16 Muffin led a short (and tasty) life. Farewell, sweet muffin. We hardly knew ye.

(TPM)

…and then get out of the way.

This was the #1 rule my favorite writing prof in college drilled into us. I actually try to follow that rule here at MPS and so I try to write very little about myself. (That and my family has threatened physical violence against me if I write about them or myself and it leads to them.)

I’m going to break that rule for a brief moment, but really, the story is about Steve Jobs. I used to see him every weekday morning when I was commuting to the Big Database Company.

The Caltrain would pull into one of the Palo Alto Stations, and Steve Jobs would be there with his kids, all of them usually on beat-up bikes; he would be disheveled in sweats, unshaven, bike helmet akimbo, looking like every other schlub dad. He would give them a kiss on the forehead (lifting up the bike helmet) and put them on the train (with their bikes) and wave until the train left the station.

(I remember the moment I witnessed the kids of the powerful and wealthy act embarrassed when Dad kisses them in public. I laughed watching the exaggerated wiping away the kiss, and the look of resentment. I swear I could lip-read “Stop it! You’re embarrassing me!”)

The morning I had my first iPod (first generation, the one which was about the size of a deck of cards, weighed a ton and had a mechanical click-wheel you physically had to turn — I still have it, BTW), and I held it up in the window of the train and gave Jobs a grin and a thumbs-up. He actually lit up like a Christmas tree, grinned and gave me a thumbs-up back.

If I did not have the iconic white ear buds in my ears when the train pulled into the station, he would frown until I put them on, and then he’d smile. I upgraded at some point to a Nano; he applauded when I held it up in the window.

And so it went.

In the end there will be the official hagiography, the mystical legend of an aloof genius. The stories of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field are already overblown, and his uncompromising business sense are already being studied. It will be the story of Steve Jobs that will be dissected in business schools, another generation of entrepreneurs hoping to somehow catch the tail of the comet, and not a word of it will matter, or be true.

Jobs was a good dad, always there with his kids. He was a captain of industry, riding a bike (not a limo) to the public train station to see his kids off to school every morning. He was involved in their lives and not just in a superficial “quality time” kinda way. He was the kind of guy who took the time to give a stranger a thumbs-up, delighted to see that his devices were being used, and delighting us. You cannot teach that in business school.

I think that Jobs was pretty cool.

There will be other, better writers making wise statements about Steve Jobs life and times, but there is one thing I will say about Jobs: he did it his way.

I skew deathy at times and I do love death humor. Isabella Blow, I know she died in 2007, but when one finds a picture this spectacular, it must be shared.

As you were…

Katie

Thanks, Odeee

Image from The Lost Classics

Peter Falk, 83, has gone to the final curtain. Most of the obits go on at great length about Columbo, which was brilliant and he was perfectly cast, but my favorite Falk role will always be the grandfather and narrator in The Princess Bride. It’s not much of a role, and Falk didn’t eat up the scenery the way that he could. It was a nuanced, gentle performance; he still is the only actor I can see taking on that small part and treating it with such dignity.

“oh, one more thing.” – one of the best lines in pop culture. He owned that.

Peter Falk will be missed.

The great ones are funny even in the great hereafter!

(Hat tip: Sun-Sentinel via Tex)

The brilliant director Sidney Lumet died of lymphoma at age 86. He directed such class and award-winning films as “12 Angry Men,” “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Verdict,” “Network.”

He will be missed.

Reuters

The first woman candidate on a national ticket, Geraldine Ferraro has left the building, but she leaves behind a country that she helped to improve by shattering glass ceilings everywhere. There is no doubt at all that she has left her mark on the joint; Ferraro proved that women do not have to take a back seat to anyone.

>Ferraro was a smart, scrappy fighter, and she left us after a long bout with cancer. She was 75, much too young.

Read more here.

Reuters

The two-time Acadamy Award-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor has died at age 79 of heart failure. Taylor defined what it is to be a star, and was absolutely one of the great screen actresses of all time.

Thanks for all the memories, Liz. You will be missed.

The Lost Centrist (dedicated to low-tech cyclist)

Oh History’s muse, note the Departed Broder
who leaves this world with uncertain odor…

A Village scribe, the Dean of such;
A ready voice who spewed much
Of the Conventional Wisdom of the place
And managed to put a reasonable face
On war lust, pillage, and economic devastation
and always always told the nation
that Bipartisanship was the only answer
and leftist hippies a fearful cancer
to be shunned by all the Serious People…

And in his view, always equal
were the Jim Demints and the John Kerrys,
the sort of view that always buries
Bernie Sanders, or Alan Grayson;
selling Bohner and Pence as good for the nation;
Treat them as statesmen, and put a face
of Reason on Karl Rove, Ace
Of Ratfuckers…And server of quail;
Such delights made Dean Broder fail
To note Rove’s mendacity and deception.
Always ready for the Embassy reception,
Consumer of Cocktail weenies, Imbiber
of Convention Wisdom, for the WaPo subscriber.

Bury his Pulitzer with his reputation,
Find new ‘real Americans’ to display to the nation
Give his seat at Washington Week
To some Centrist Republican media freak
Like Brooks, and try to forget
the sponge-like columns that would regret
any Progressive show of strength or rightness;
the worship of power cloaked in Politeness:
Messages from Broderland, where Gingrich is smart,
Hillary shrill, and the whole art
of the columnist is saying both sides are the same
And never, never let on that the game
Of equivalence is false, and that Reality
Biased: and never never admit his fealty
to Movement conservatism and the mainstreaming
of Rightist talking points, and that seeming
centrism is just Establishment agitprop;
Feed the Powerful praise, and the Readers slop.

Goodbye, Dean, we bury you and hope to bury the Consensus
with you, and the Nation return to it’s senses…

–Scissorhead Mr. Bill, via email

…to his old friend and colleague, David Broder.

David Broder has gone to the Late Edition in the Sky, Turned in the Last Underwood Typewriter, gone for the Final Re-Write. One would think that given his life’s work of screaming Centrism, Broder would be in Purgatory between Heaven and Hell, or at least be the walking dead.

I did not admire Broder’s work, but I did admire his work ethic. It is amazing that Broder churned out decade after decade of columns that offered absolutely no insight so consistently.

Broder had a national platform to espouse his nutty, thinly-disguised slightly right-wing opinions for decades (which he certainly did), and he had an impact upon the country and our politics. Most writers that I know would give just about anything to have that opportunity (myself included), and I hope a new voice, younger and hopefully less blinkered by Broder’s false-centrism will take his place.

Yeah, I know it is a cultural taboo to speak ill of the dead, but I spoke ill of him when he was alive, and I see no need to change that now.

That said, Broder was admired by many, feared by some, and by all counts he was loved by many as well. We send our condolences to those who will miss him, his surviving family, friends, and colleagues.

I send special condolences to Attaturk. He has just lost his best running joke.

(Dedicated to my blog-father, Morse, who always relished a David Broder column.)

Kenneth Mars has gone to that extra curtain call in the sky.

He was a terrific comic foil, and a frequent contributor to Mel Brook’s most classic movies, but he is especially remembered for The Producers where he played Franz Liebkind, a Hitler-worshiping playwright. Mars ate up the scenery and stole scenes from Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in that movie, not an easy feat.

You shut up! You are the audience! I am the author! I OUTRANK you!

(SF Gate)

I still say exercise is overrated. After all Jack didn’t live quite till forever.

Jack LaLanne, Founder of Modern Fitness Movement, Dies at 96

….
Mr. LaLanne, 5-foot-6 and 150 pounds or so with a 30-inch waist, maintained that he disliked working out. He said he kept at it strictly to feel fit and stay healthy. He built two gyms and a pool at his home in Morro Bay, and began each day, into his 90s, with two hours of workouts: weight lifting followed by a swim against an artificial current or in place, tied to a belt.
…..
“I can’t die,” he most famously liked to say. “It would ruin my image.”

RIP Captain Beefheart, aka Don Van Vliet, a frequent collaborator with Frank Zappa.

Another sad loss: Blake Edwards, one of the best comedic directors in film, has died at age 88 from complications from pneumonia. His wife, Julie Andrews, was with him.

I love his very silly movies, from The Pink Panther to Victor/Victoria, Edwards had a real gift for comedy and a strong poignant streak, too: Days of Wine and Roses, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Though he never won an Acadamy Award for directing, his actors often were nominated and sometimes one. And was there ever a better combo than Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers? I think not.

Here’s some clever gags from the various Pink Panther movies (not all of which were directed by Edwards.)

Thanks for all the laughs, Mr. Edwards, you will be missed.

Awwww, we lost a good one. Leslie Nielsen, the handsome former leading man who found a second career making fun of his first career, has died. He was 84, and will surely be missed… and quit calling him Shirley.

If anyone wants to post some favorite quotes in the comments, please feel free. The man as a national treasure.

…it may not amount to a hill of beans. But this is our hill…and these are our beans.

An update from our poet Laureate, Mountjoy:

Leslie Nielsen dead?
Surely he was immortal!
Don’t call me Shirley…

Our favorite bookie, Paul the Octopus has died. Paul, who correctly predicted the last World Cup, was 2.

Aquarium spokeswoman Ariane Vieregge in Oberhausen said Tuesday that Paul seemed fine when checked on late Monday night but was found dead in his tank Tuesday morning.

She says that it was normal for an octopus of his type to die at that age and that he had died of natural causes.

Paul correctly predicted the outcome of all seven of Germany’s games plus Spain’s victory over the Netherlands in the final.

I think someone ought to bring in Jessica Fletcher, his death seems fishy to me.

Vale Guccione!
Countless boys first saw crotch shots
thanks to his Penthouse.

What a great life! And what a great actor, Tony Curtis has taken his final bow at age 85. Yeah, he’s best known for his cross-dressing role in Some Like it Hot–hence this picture–but he had such a wide variety of roles, it really would be tough to choose just one. From one of the original teen heartthrobs to leading man, Curtis always delivered.

You will be missed, but thank you for all the entertainment. You did good, Tony.

Jimi Heselden, the multi-millionaire owner of the Segway company died in a freak accident yesterday when he rode one of the high-tech two-wheel machines off a cliff and into a river. (UK Mail)

James J. Kilpatrick, the cuddly curmudgeon conservative, was 89, and you can point to him for the proliferation of idiotic talking pundits from the print media on the teevee machine. He pioneered that trend on Point/Counterpoint segment on 60 minutes, which lead to the much better parody on Saturday Night Live.

Washington Post

Cathy is giving up her hunt for the perfect bathing suit after 34 years. Aaack.

I’ve never been sure if Cathy was a plus for women or a minus – but I do know that Cathy Guisewite’s career has been an absolute plus. There have been very few female cartoonists, let alone hugely successful ones. So even as much as I never enjoyed Cathy (wrong demographic, I guess), I think she will be missed.

(Full disclosure: I met Cathy Guisewite once years ago, she’s a genuinely nice person and she looks nothing like her star.)

George Steinbrenner died at age 80 this morning, in Tampa Bay, Florida.

For a fee, the US Olympics Committee would fly a flag at half mast in his memory.

The Senate has lost one of its legends with the death of Robert C. Byrd, an orphan child who married a coal miner’s daughter and rose from the hollows of West Virginia coal country to become the longest serving senator in U.S. history.

(And so the second wave in our Summer of Death 2 begins.)

McClanahan was 76 and she died this morning of a massive stroke. I’m sure that she will always be best remembered for her Golden Girls role of man-hungry Blanche Devereaux, but she was quite an accomplished Broadway star before going to the teevee.

I think the best thing about the Golden Girls was how they let the rest of us know that women of a certain age were still sexual beings. Blanche, er Rue, was central to that theme. She will be missed – and thanks for all the laughs.

This leaves us with only one Golden Girl, Betty White.