Thank You, Tiny Old Woman, For Being a Friend.

Estelle Getty
July 25, 1923 - July 22, 2008
I wasn't really a fan of The Golden Girls.

No, to be completely honest, to say that I wasn't a fan of The Golden Girls is putting it mildly. I hated it. It was a complete waste of time and had no reason to exist, save to give people stuck at home on Saturday night something to watch while their lives passed them by.

But I did pay to see Estelle Getty and Sylvester Stallone in Stop...Or My Mom Will Shoot! in a theater, so who am I kidding?

When Estelle Getty died a year ago today, people felt bad. They were completely shocked...because she was, in reality, only slightly younger than Bea Arthur, the actress who played her daughter on the show. Her Golden Girls co-stars Betty White and Rue McLanahan had very nice things to say about her.

But when Bea Arthur died a few months back, people just made jokes that she was a transexual and slammed her. Nobody had much good to say about her.

I think there's an important lesson to be learned from this. But I don't know what it is.

I guess...be nice to people, and they'll be nice to you. Be a cranky old hag and no one will want to work with you and people will make jokes on radio shows after your death that you had a penis.

Death's Day Off.

No one died today. Also no one who later died was born today. No one at all. This is a guarantee, and you don't even have to check it out. They must have done something to the water.

Check back tomorrow for guaranteed death.

Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting

Bruce Lee
Nov. 27, 1940 - July 20, 1973
Bruce Lee died on this day in 1973. He was killed by ninja assassins, the very same ninja assassins who later shot his son Brandon on the set of the movie The Crow and more recently caught up with his friend David Carradine. They dressed David up in fishnets and a wig and tied a rope around his junk to humiliate him. It's the Bruce Lee Curse, my friends. When you run with ninja assassins, you can always count on them getting you. You cannot escape.

Also, on this date in 1969, some guys stood around on a movie set at area 51 and Walter Cronkite reported that we'd walked on the moon. But he knew too much and he was killed last Friday by ninja assassins.

Oh, they will get you. You may be 92 years old and retired, but they will come for you. Beware of ninja assassins.

The Adventures of Crazy Mama Oswald

Marguerite Oswald
July 19, 1907 - Jan. 17, 1981

"Lee Harvey Oswald, my son, even after his death,
has done more for his country than
any other living human being."
As with all things, I am judging Lee Harvey's mother, Marguerite Oswald, to be crazy simply from something I saw in a movie. In this case it was a throwaway line in Oliver Stone's well-made but historically innacurate 1991 epic JFK. Stone really doesn't expand on it other than to say she was bonkers. So what was so crazy about her, anyways?

"This young man - whether he's my son or a stranger -
repeatedly declares, I didn't do it, I didn't do it. And
he's shot down. That's not the American way of life.
A man is innocent until he's proved guilty."
I read a good bit of Mama Oswald's testimony to the Warren Commission and found it unremarkable. She seems like a cranky old lady trying to get some representation for her son, but it doesn't reveal her to be any crazier than the average old lady.

Lee's father had died two months before he was born and his mother mostly raised him and his two brothers by herself. While living in New York, Young Lee was diagnosed with psychotic tendencies in 1953 and was recommended for psyhciatric help, but his mother opted to suddenly move to New Orleans instead. What could possibly go wrong?

Because his mother moved around so much, he had lived in 22 different homes by age 18. Depending on who you ask, there was or wasn't a series of "uncles" coming around, some with mafia connections. Lee therefore either did or didn't have connections to the New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello, who either did or didn't employ Jack Ruby, the man who either did or didn't shoot Oswald many years later. Allegedly.

(JFK's central character, Jim Garrison, was a gambler and apparently owed money to Marcello. As a result, he was quick to brush off any mob connection to the JFK assassination. This fact is one of many missing from Stone's film.)

"Lee was such a fine, high-class boy. If my son
killed the President he would have said so.
That's the way he was brought up."
In 1964, Marguerite released a record album on Folkways records in which she read her son's letters he'd written while living in Russia. Nothing more American than making a fast buck off your recently-dead son. Papa Joe Jackson would be so proud. It must be terrible...I'd love to hear it.

I was fascinated to find a photographic analysis of photos of Marguerite Oswald from the 1950s. Turns out there were several different Marguerite Oswalds, including fakes and doubles, and the thing was a cover-up before it was even a cover-up. God as my witness, there are some people who believe that they (whoever they are) were planning the JFK assassination while Oswald was still in grade school.

There's nothing about this case that doesn't fit. The most unbelievable nuggets of information somehow all seem to make sense in the enormous scope of it all. Maybe that's why Marguerite Oswald doesn't really seem all that crazy to me.

"Mr. Johnson should remember that I am not just anyone
and that he is only President of the United States
by the grace of my son's action."


**For the record, I am on the fence about the JFK assassination. I was once a believer in a huge conspiracy, but time has shown me that freaky things can and do happen every day. The career of Carrot Top is proof enough of this. There is simply too much money in perpetuating wild theories which can never be proven, and there's a good chance that a lot of the disinformation has come from the government itself in an effort to distract us all from more current shenanigans.**

Hot Chicks of Ancient Hollywood, Part 1

Lupe Velez
July 18, 1908 - Dec. 13, 1944
What can I say about Lupe Velez? She was hot, and now she's dead. Seriously. There's not much more to it than that.

She starred in several films, most notably the Mexican Spitfire series, but I found her to be at her hottest in a 1932 film called Kongo. She was married to Tarzan star Johnny Weismuller for five years and apparently suffered from bipolar disorder.

As for her death, Wikipedia has this to say:

"In the mid-1940s, she had a relationship with the young actor Harald Maresch, and became pregnant with his child. Vélez, following her Catholic upbringing, refused to have an abortion. Unable to face the shame of giving birth to an illegitimate child, she decided to take her own life. Her suicide note read, "To Harald: May God forgive you and forgive me, too; but I prefer to take my life away and our baby's, before I bring him with shame, or killing him. Lupe." She retired to bed after taking an overdose of sleeping pills. According to newspaper accounts, her body was found by her secretary and companion of ten years, Beulah Kinder.

Andy Warhol's underground film, Lupe (1965), starring Edie Sedgwick as Lupe, is loosely based on this fateful night, suggesting that she was found with her head in the toilet due to nausea caused by the overdose. Another report says she tripped and fell head-first into the toilet, knocking herself unconscious and drowning. However, Kinder reports finding Vélez peacefully asleep in her bed."

Lupe Velez has an unusual place amongst the other women on my "Time Machine List". Assuming a time machine can be perfected in my lifetime, I would steal it and use it to travel back to fornicate with the women on the list. Others on this list include Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Anna Nicole Smith, and porn actress Trinity Loren. Lupe Velez is the only actress on the list who was less than a c-cup. Although I'm normally a meat and potatoes man, I sometimes like to spice things up.

I, The Badass

Mickey Spillane
Mar. 9, 1918 - Jul. 17, 2006
Yet another badass. I mean, look at that hat. That is one serious hat, and you don't wear something like that unless you mean business. Mickey Spillane was a serious tough guy who meant what he said. He didn't just write Mike Hammer...he was Mike Hammer.

He started his career by writing comic books. He wrote for Funnies, Inc., which was an outfit that packaged comics for different publishers. He ultimately wrote for every major superhero of the 1940s...Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, and Captain America. Kick ass. Remember that this was a time when Batman and Captain America would just as soon shoot you as bring you in. It was a wonderful time.

The day after the Asians attacked Pearl Harbor, Mickey Spillane joined the U.S. Army. He and his wife wanted to buy a house so he wrote the first Mike Hammer novel, I, The Jury, in 19 days. It sold over six million copies.

But when I said that Mickey Spillane was Mike Hammer, he literally was Mike Hammer, playing his own character in the 1963 film The Girl Hunters. He later appeared on an episode of Columbo but is more remembered these days for some Miller Lite commercials he made in the 1980s. This importance of this cannot be overstated. Miller Lite is rat's piss in a can. It's awful and undrinkable. But Mickey Spillane made it manly to drink, and the ad campaign was a huge success.

I'd love to write like Mickey Spillane, and a lot of people have imitated his no-nonsense, two-fisted hardboiled style. But there will never truly be another writer like him...probably because the politically correct crowd would shut him up these days. You can't call women dames or skirts any more because no one has any sense of humor these days. It makes me sad for our eroding culture, where there are no more real men.

It almost makes me want to have a Miller Lite. Almost.

Local Boy Makes Big Splash

John F. Kennedy, Jr.
Nov. 25, 1960 - July 16, 1999
Sure, you're rich. You've never had to work a day in your life. Your dad was President of the United States. You got to spend the family money starting George, a well-meaning but unread political magazine. You got to bang Madonna and Daryl Hannah. It's been a pretty sweet life by most people's standards...but are you happy?

Well, the answer is, of course, no.

No one is happy...because even millionaires want more than they have. That's why you are seriously contemplating running for the Senate. Who could beat you? No one living in the state of New York, for sure. Unless something crazy happens, like some scheming political carpetbagger suddenly moving to New York to jump on it, the job is yours.

It's a good thing you're not running against someone like that...no one gets in their way. They'd Kaiser Soze your ass, removing the memory of anyone that even spoke to you. People who cross them have a way of winding up in the park with all their blood drained out. Allegedly.

But that's next year. Right now you're headed for your cousin's wedding. And it's bad enough that you've got your wife harping on you, but then you've got her sister along for the ride. It's almost enough to make a guy dive his plane into the Atlantic Ocean, just to end it all. Backseat drivers...am I right, fellas?

You relax, assured in the knowledge that your future is secure. You are, after all, a Kennedy. It's a carefree life when you're America's invincible Golden Boy. Wealth, entitlement, and adventure await. You'll be surrounded by loving children and grandchildren long into old age.

Make sure to work that last bit into the toast at the wedding, when you get there...

Diabetes, Bad.

Dana Hill
May 6, 1964 - July 15, 1996
(Pardon me if the entries this week are a bit disjointed, brief, or non-existent. Turns out I'm moving and losing internet access completely for a bit, so I'm doing about a week's worth of entries in advance...)

Not much to say about Dana Hill. She was a child star who is best remembered for portraying Audrey Griswold in National Lampoon's European Vacation and numerous after-school specials. She later found work doing voices for cartoons such as Duckman, Rugrats, Goof Troop, Gummi Bears, and Darkwing Duck.

She also unfortunately suffered from diabetes, which stunted her growth and caused major complications. She suffered a stroke and died at age 32 on July 15, 1996, leaving a legacy of goofy cartoon voices.

And now a confession. I always had the hots for her. Of course it never went very far, with her being dead and all...but I suppose these things happen. Sigh.

The Only Good Hippie...

Jerry Rubin
Jul. 14, 1938 - Nov. 28, 1994
“His words and courage inspired us" - Jerry Rubin, writing about Charles Manson in his book, We Are Everywhere.

First and foremost, a hippie is a hippie. Take the love beads off, give him a bath, and you've got a clean hippie, but a hippie nonetheless. And Jerry Rubin was always a hippie.

I hate hippies. Does that make me a bad person? Almost every so-called "revolution" is quickly repackaged and sold back by The Man to the very people attempting to carry it out. All such movements are a crock of crap, marketed to suckers.

I hate emos and goths for the same reason. Feel free to express your individuality and rage by dressing alike and listening to the same music. Idiots.

But unlike the emo kids and goths of today, who are simply just weepy and annoying, hippies like Jerry Rubin had an extremist agenda...namely, the radical overthrow of the government of the United States. As members of the "Chicago Eight", Rubin and his friend Abbie Hoffman (both also founders of the Yippies, the Youth International Party) helped incite the violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

And even when the Vietnam War was over and there was little left to protest, guys like Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman still hung around and made trouble, eventually turning on each other in a series of debates.

Rubin was also an early investor in Apple Computer. But I must point out, so was Forrest Gump.

In a final audacious act of nonconformity, Jerry Rubin jaywalked on a busy street and was hit by a car on November 14, 1994. He lingered and died from his injuries fourteen days later.

Typical. Staying in bed for two weeks. Lazy hippie.


Did I mention I don't like hippies?

Never Got a Dinner!

Red Buttons
Feb. 5, 1919 - July 13, 2006
What? His real name wasn't Red Buttons?!? You're blowin' my mind, man.

Red Buttons (born Aaron Chwatt) was a lot like yesterday's subject, Milton Berle. Except Red was funny and had talent. Did a ton of film and TV work, was a gifted songwriter, and yet always made time to do those Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. I was impressed that on every one, he used the same comedy routine.

(From memory) "I want to thank our guest of honor for being here tonight, and it's good to celebrate this person. But there are others from history, great people, who never got a dinner..."

And he'd do five minutes of jokes about people who never got a dinner. It always killed. Unlike that Milton Berle, who just stunk the place up with his stolen 1948 jokes, in his dress.

I always liked Red Buttons. A great comedian with good timing and also a dependable actor. He was probably the only person in The Poseidon Adventure who I have any respect for at all, even though I despise that movie. He also won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe in 1958 for Sayonara, and Milton Berle didn't.

In short, Red Buttons was talented and funny. While his IMDB biography says he still plays Vegas on occasion, I highly doubt this. I'm not sure he ever got a dinner, but he deserved one. Milton Berle almost certainly did get one, and yet he shouldn't have.

He sucked...just like he sucked yesterday.

Men in Dresses? Hilarious.

Milton Berle
July 12, 1908 - Mar. 27, 2002
Seriously. There was a time when fame meant something. You could become a huge superstar just by appearing on TV. It might help to have talent but you didn't really need it.

That's how Milton Berle did it, anyway.

Steal some jokes, wear a dress, become a superstar. It all seemed so simple back then. Sure, it helped to have a legendarily large penis...but did you ever check out a mirror, buddy? John Holmes had a huge unit, too. Never stopped him from being ugly...not even for a minute.

I hated Milton Berle. There never was a time when I thought he was funny. Men in dresses stopped being funny in the 1940s. My hatred probably started with Ratt's "Round and Round" music video, where he put the dress on one more time for Bing Crosby's grandson's band.

He was "Mr. Television". But there were like three guys on TV, tops. He slept with Marilyn Monroe. Well, so did Sinatra. So did Einstein. So would I have been able to if I was born yet. My bad. He had an enormous penis. Well, probably. But look who it was attached to. He was the ugliest person this side of Neil Young.

He just wasn't funny. He was just on TV, back when it mattered. He couldn't make it today, not even in porn.

He sucked.

People should face up to that.

On Second Thought, Smoke.

Yul Brynner
July 11, 1920 - Oct. 10, 1985
When Yul Brynner found out he had cancer, he was upset. And he should have been. But he shouldn't have been surprised, he'd been a smoker all his life.

So he does an interview, and I think it was a Barbara Walters interview, during which he pleads with people to stop smoking. He dies not long after, and the segment where he begs people not to smoke plays as a public service announcement from the Cancer Society, or something.

Years later, on an episode of my podcast, I altered the audio so he's begging people to smoke. I did it because it's funny, and because smoking is cool.

Say what you will about smoking. It causes cancer? It surely does. Emphysema? Absolutely. Heart disease and early death? Yep.

But it's freakin' cool. No doubt about it.

Now, I don't smoke. It's not that I necessarily care about my health, it's that I can't pull it off. I tried it, but I am not cool. Never was.

Smokers, who used to constitute a large sector of the American public, have been relegated to second-class citizens at best. You can't smoke in a building, any building, not even a bar. In most places you can't even smoke outside. There will come a time in the future when you can't even smoke in your own home. It's sad.

I say, smoke if you want to smoke. I don't believe all that crap about second-hand smoke, and I actually kind of like the smell. The last pack of cigarettes I bought cost me about $1.75. If I wanted to smoke now, the same pack would cost me around six dollars. If you're paying that much, you should be able to smoke in church. In a time of recession, you are supporting the economy. You are one tax-paying sumbitch.

As I say, I don't smoke...so I'll no doubt die from some other form of cancer. I do respect the level of commitment it takes to be a full-time smoker, but I couldn't afford it. Anybody who can spend $30-$50 a week on smokes, knowing they'll die from them, that's devotion.

No doubt about it, Yul Brynner was cool. Shaved bald head, thick accent, weird sex appeal. And a cigarette. It was a package deal. He lived large in a time when everyone smoked. It was not only acceptable, it was what everyone did. He was a movie star...traveled the world, made a lot of money, banged a lot of chicks. He was a badass.

Complaining about dying to Barbara Walters at the age of 68 after having such a great life just makes you look like a pussy.

Stupid Mysteries of the Internet

The Radio Rascals
Feb. 10, 1907 - July 10, 1964
As you're probably aware, I get a lot of my info on celebrity deaths from Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database. So, it can be and often is wrong. On any given day, there is a column of celebrity births on that day, and another of celebrity deaths. Keeping to the spirit of Dead Person of the Day, I can pick either one...just as long as the dead person was either born or died that day. But sometimes I stumble upon an entry that makes absolutely no sense, and I'm forced to investigate.

"The Radio Rascals" was born in Marshfield, Missouri on Feb. 10, 1907 and died in Dallas Texas, on July 10, 1964. It is listed under "actor" and has three screen credits (from the '30s and '40s) under "singer". And nothing else. No real names, no cause of death, no explanation of who or what the Radio Rascals was. A search of Wikipedia and the internet turned up nothing related to this.

If it was a person, a real name should have been given. If it was a group, it makes no sense that all the members were born on the same day in the same place and died the exact same way. It couldn't have been a radio show, since commercial radio didn't exist in 1907 and the show wouldn't have run for 57 years without some mention on the internet. It's entirely possible that the entry was slipped in as a joke, but why the time frame? 1907-1964? What could this mean?

It's weird. I don't even care...it just frustrates me that there is something that I cannot know about.

Epic fail, information superhighway.






Check out the IMDB entry here.

Old Dead Guys of the Silver Screen, Part 1

Charles Lane
Jan. 26, 1905 - July 9, 2007
There is no way I'm going to see 102. No way in hell. Nor do I really want to, to tell you the truth. The sheer number of funerals I'd have to attend would have me wishing that mine would be next. I'd also be in doubt of my own goodness, since Billy Joel has clearly established that dying young is the exclusive province of the good.

Charles Lane, a character actor who died on this day in 2007, did make it that far...making a fool of Billy since nobody has anything bad to say about him. His IMDB profile lists three hundred and fifty acting credits. He first began acting in 1929 and in 1933 was a founding member of the Screen Actor's Guild.

He had a recurring role on Petticoat Junction as Mr. Bedloe, who was always scheming to get the railroad to stop running through Hooterville. My speculation, of course, is the Bedloe didn't even work for the railroad company...he just liked coming around because of those hot Bradley daughters, who tended to bathe in public. Naked.

He even appeared in two of my favorite films, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and It's a Wonderful Life. In fact, his character in the latter film (a rent-collector for Mr. Potter) inspired the humorless blue-haired lawyer seen in several episodes of The Simpsons.

The brilliance of actors like Charles Lane is the fact that they don't stand out. You don't recognize them as movie stars so they don't take you out of the movie. They do their jobs and they move the plot along. The acting world needs background players and character actors just as much as they need Christian Bale. In fact, no one needs Christian Bale. Bad example. Strike that from the record.

Lane was born in San Francisco in 1905 and was, prior to his death, one of the last remaining survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. He was quite young, though, so he probably didn't have much to say about it. But now he has nothing at all to say about it, so there you go.

He was married to the same woman for 70 years until she died in 2002. This flies in the face of logic, as it's typically wives who outlive their husbands (KISS bassist Gene Simmons has stated that men die first because they want to).

But then again, maybe she was sick. It happens.

Mr. Lanagan's Big Break

Glenn Langan
July 8, 1917 - Jan. 19, 1991

Now, let's get one thing straight. This piece has nothing to do with Glenn Langan. He's incidental to it, really, and I know nothing about the man. Other than his birth and death dates and film credits (and having seen one of his movies many, many times), I may or may not have any idea what I'm talking about.

You can work your entire life, slowly and methodically mastering your craft, and never get the attention you seek. It happens to a lot of people. Glenn Langan (or Langen, depending on your source) was one such man. From his early 20s on, he slowly and steadily worked in a series of films, with each acting role being meatier than the preceding one, and yet true stardom eluded him. A good actor, reliable and employable, sure...but was he known? Answer: no.

But ultimately it paid off. All those auditions, all that time pounding the pavement, it lead up to the role of a lifetime.

That's right, 1957's The Amazing Colossal Man.

It's the tale of Major Glenn Manning, exposed to radiation in a government experiment, who grows to an amazing colossal size in the middle of the Nevada desert. After experiencing self-pity and angst over his predicament, he does what any man would do...he goes to Las Vegas and steps on things.

It was the role of a lifetime, and these days it's the role that Glenn Langan is best remembered for. It's one of director Bert I. Gordon's more successful giant monster movies, and he made a metric buttload of those (it also seems to have indirectly inspired Stan Lee and Jack Kirby when they were creating The Incredible Hulk for Marvel Comics in 1962...but that's another story). It was a decent flick in the classic monster tradition.

But that's where the tragedy comes in. The rules of monster movies in those days were different. The man (or woman) who becomes the monster had to be a well-intentioned, average person. Through a cruel plot device of fate, he is cursed to spend the rest of his life (usually about 68 minutes, give or take) causing mayhem and being hounded like an animal. The monster becomes increasingly insane and violent over the remainder of the film and kills innocent people. In the end, the monster is destroyed for the good of mankind. No exceptions.

Unless the movie makes money, that is...in which case the monster comes back for War of the Colossal Beast in 1958. Which it did, and it did.

But Glenn Langan wasn't in that one. His character was made facially disfigured so you couldn't tell it was some other actor playing the part. Odds are he wanted more money, or wanted to be taken more seriously, so he went back to doing television. Glenn Langan's last film was a very small uncredited part in The Andromeda Strain in 1971 and he died of cancer in 1991.

But again, this rambling and disjointed piece is not really about Glenn Langan, who was born 92 years ago today.

It's about a giant bald guy walking around the desert, looking like Mr. Clean in an oversized diaper, picking up toy cars and looking inside them, and throwing a giant syringe at an army dude and killing him with it.

Now that's entertainment...and they don't make 'em like that any more.

I've Got a Secret About the Wild Joker's Password Being Right, and I'm Telling the Blockbuster Truth.

Bill Cullen
Feb. 18, 1920 - July 7, 1990
"Like thousands of other youngsters, I was stricken with polio as a child. Even with the wonderful care I received from my parents and doctors, I still carry the scars of this experience. Somehow, it never got me down. That's why I would rather not have people who see me limp along show any pity, distress or compassion - since I don't feel this way about my physical condition."
-- Bill Cullen, 1957

Bill Cullen was a one-man game show machine. How can one man host so many game shows? What's up with that? In a career that spanned more than 35 years, he hosted at least twenty-four game shows on radio and TV. Not to mention the fact that he had crippling polio as a child, which makes all the work he did later in life seem pretty bad ass.

Most people don't know that he was the original host on The Price is Right, from 1956-1965. When the show was revived in 1972, Cullen was the original choice to host. Unfortunately, physical demands on him made him unable to take the job, and the position went to insane animal activist Bob Barker. Had Cullen been able to take the hosting job, we might never have been guilted into spaying and neutering our pets by a host who was banging his big-boobed prize sluts behind the scenes. What a wonderful world this would be if we never had to put up with Bob Barker's crap.

Cullen was also the original host of Blockbusters and Chain Reaction, as well as hosting The $25,000 Pyramid, Password Plus, The Joker's Wild, Eye Guess, Three on a Match, Hot Potato, Child's Play, Pass the Buck, Name That Tune, Stop the Music, Winner Take All, The Love Experts, I've Got a Secret, Blankety Blanks, Winning Streak, The Choice is Yours, Place the Face, Bank on the Stars, Decisons, Decisions, and How Do You Like Your Eggs?

From Wikipedia: "The Game Show Congress, a nonprofit association that seeks to promote the game show industry, annually presents the Bill Cullen Career Achievement Award to performers who have had distinguished careers in the genre. The first award in 2004 was given posthumously to Cullen himself, which his widow Ann accepted."

It should also be noted that Bill Cullen was a pilot during World War II, and was interested in mechanics. He also did color commentary for football games and track and field events. A lifelong smoker, he died of lung cancer on July 7, 1990.

You might notice that this entry isn't as snarky and hate-filled as my usual ones. That's because I was inspired by Bill Cullen. I now realize that in America you don't have to be the best at everything to succeed. You only have to be good at one thing. And no matter what that one thing is...if you apply yourself, you can make it. Not that you will make it, of course...you absolutely won't. But you theoretically can. And that really makes all the difference to delusional dreamers like myself.

Either way in the end you'll die of cancer of the lungs (or the brain, or the ass) and pretty much be forgotten...but at least you got to be on TV while you were here. A lot.

I think that's all that any of us can really ask.

Do It. Do It.

Van McCoy
Jan. 6, 1940 - July 6, 1979
For a guy who never appeared in movies, Van McCoy sure has a lot of IMDB credits. He's been dead for exactly thirty years today, yet people who don't even know who he is, know who he is.

Cause he was that guy. You know the one.

He mostly wrote songs for other artists, most notably Barbara Lewis' "Baby, I'm Yours", but he detoured into disco in the mid-1970s. And that's when things went horribly, horribly wrong. Or horribly right, depending on who you ask.

If you ask me, it wasn't good. Not good at all. What's that? You didn't ask? Consider it a freebie. You're welcome.

His most notable contribution to our culture, and a defining moment of the '70s disco movement, was a groovy disco anthem with only five words:

"Do it...do the Hustle"
Actually, it was only four words, since "do" is really the same word, but used more than once. But you get the idea.

If you were alive in 1975, you fell into one of two groups of people: people that hated "The Hustle", and people that hated "The Hustle"...yet owned it. It was a combination disco dance/infectuous mind weevil that took the nation by storm and went directly to the top of the charts. It was awful, but people couldn't get enough of it.

And years later, that song is the reason that Van McCoy, a man who has been dead for thirty years, has had sixteen TV and movie credits since he died.

It's generally used in a kitschy, ironic sense these days, but I hate that song. Irony doesn't make me want to listen to it more. I was every bit of seven years old when it was released and I hated it then. I have never not hated it.

Van McCoy suffered a sudden massive heart attack in New Jersey at the age of 39 on July 6, 1979. It's a terrible way to die...of a heart attack, and in New Jersey.

I don't hate the guy...but I hate the evil that he released into the world.

Also...nice hat.

Mmmm...Hulka Burger.

Warren Oates
July 5, 1928 - April 3, 1982
Happy 81st Birthday to our Big Toe, Sgt. Hulka.

Warren Oates was tough. He was a man. He smoked and drank and ate red meat every day of his life. He played tough guys on TV, and even tougher guys in the movies. That's because in the movies they let you kill people and say dirty words. Yeah, all of them...even that one. I know which one you're thinking. Turns out I'm a man, too. And I learned all the mannish manly things I know by watching macho tough guys like Warren Oates.

While he's best known as Sgt. Hulka in Stripes, he played John Dillinger in Dillinger, Lyle Gorch in The Wild Bunch, Specs O'Keefe in The Brink's Job, and Frank Stewart in Race With the Devil. That must have been the toughest role of all, because he played Loretta Swit's husband. You know how freakin' tough of a nail-spitting real man you gotta be to put it to Loretta Swit? Or how great of an actor you have to be to pretend to do so? You have my infinite respect, sir.

But that was just in the movies. On TV, he was the go-to guy when an actor didn't want to (or was too dead to) reprise his movie role for a made-for-TV movie. He was Rooster Cogburn in True Grit: A Further Adventure and took Bogart's role in the 1977 TV remake of The African Queen. He was even in the 1973 musical adaptation of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, playing Muff Potter. Are you aware of what kind of bad ass you have to be to play a character named "Muff Potter"?!? You're the kind of bad ass that all other bad asses have a picture of on their walls that says "Our Leader". That's what kind of bad ass you are.

And he worked all the time. Even after he died of a massive heart attack, he refused to stop working. "Dead? That ain't gonna stop me!", he might have been heard to say, and his projects continued to appear. He was even seen kicking substantial hiney a year after his death in Blue Thunder. The last thing with him in it appeared in 1985, and then he retired. Take that, Hollywood girly-men!

But the question I have is this. Warren Oates and Katherine Helmond were born on the same day. I mean the same day, in the same year. She was the man-hungry Mona on Who's The Boss, which hadn't even aired yet when he died. But he's been dead for twenty-seven years now and she's still going strong. What's up with that?

Perhaps it's as Neil Young said...it's better to burn out, than do a sitcom with Tony Danza.

Fourth of July Firecracker Deathmatch!

Oh, sure. Everybody takes July 4th off. Well, not me, mister. Other blogs might take national holidays off, but I'll not be caught with my figurative pants around my metaphorical ankles. Death is the biggest thing going, and it never stops. I'm here to keep up with it. And by "keep up", I mean to take swipes at famous people years (or sometimes decades) after their deaths...or whenever I feel like it.

So, in this special holiday edition of Dead Person of the Day, I have decided to put a number of July 4 fatalities up against each other...just for kicks. This is not the way I usually do things, but I didn't feel like doing a "real" post. Enjoy. Or, not.

Barry White
Sep. 12, 1944 - July 4, 2003
vs.
Jesse Helms
Oct. 18, 1921 - July 4, 2008
Now, it's not likely that the paths of white supremacist North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and chocolate mountain of love Barry White ever crossed. Jesse wouldn't have approved of White's sexy ways, and Barry would be too busy having sex and busting out soul hits to even notice. Jesse would be advocating "whites only" drinking fountains and cutting funding for AIDS research, but Barry would be selling 100 million records and making sweet, sweet love. While Jesse would be opposing a national holiday for Martin Luther King, Barry would be busy appearing on The Simpsons and being the commercial spokesman for Arby's. It's not hard to decide whose side I would fall on in such a battle. Barry White all the way, bitches. He was just too sexy and soulful to vote otherwise.

John Adams
Oct. 30, 1735 - July 4, 1826
vs.
Thomas Jefferson
Apr. 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826
Thomas Jefferson...third President of the United States. Political genius, founder of the University of Virginia, father of freakin' democracy. John Adams...second President of the United States. So-so leader whose cousin Samuel brewed kickass beer, accidental war hero, had his ass handed to him by Jefferson in the 1800 election. Both men died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Adams was on his deathbed but spoke of warmly Jefferson, not knowing that Jefferson had totally owned him and grabbed the spotlight by dying hours earlier. Ye TMZ completely had the Jefferson death up already and the Adams story was way down at the bottom of the page. Jefferson for the win...since he's not only on the nickel, but the freakin' $2 bill. How many denominations of money is John Adams on? None, that's how many. Also had a kickass sitcom, The Jeffersons, loosely based on his life. Movin' on up, Tommy J!

James Monroe
Apr. 28, 1758 - July 4, 1831
"Oooooh, I'm James Monroe. I have a doctrine! I want to be like the other Presidents and die on July 4, too! No one remembers me!"

Please. The biggest thing that happened during your Presidency was the acquisition of Florida. You want that to be your legacy?!? You make Millard Fillmore look like Vin Diesel. Point goes to no one. It's just pathetic.

Worst Stooge Ever.

"Curly Joe" DeRita
July 12, 1909 - July 3, 1993

Following the deaths of Stooges Curly Howard and Shemp Howard, and the lackluster performance of Shemp's replacement Joe Besser, nightclub comic Joe DeRita was recruited by Moe Howard and Larry Fine in 1958 to become the sixth member of the Three Stooges.

There's a lot of debate among Stoogeophiles as to who was worse, Joe Besser or "Curly Joe" DeRita. My money's on DeRita, because while Besser's contract forbade him from being physically abused by Larry and Moe, he at least had a comedic presence. DeRita was just a fat guy who was out of his element, which was telling dirty jokes in Las Vegas. While his act may have killed, he brought nothing to the Stooges, which by the late '50s were making movies for kids.

And the movies were terrible. The Stooges were done until the old Three Stooges shorts were syndicated to television in 1957. This brought a new wave of popularity to the team, which had been out of work since Columbia shut down its short-subjects division. So the movies, made to capitalize on their new fame, were aimed squarely at kids. Movies like The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, Have Rocket, Will Travel, and Snow White and the Three Stooges. You get the idea. Awful.

It's ironic that Curly Joe was with the Stooges for much longer than any other "third Stooge". He was still a member when Moe died in 1975 while planning a new film. In fact, he outlived every other member of the team, causing one to ponder the possible non-existence of a comedy deity.

The worst sin committed by Joe DeRita was not that he never found the Stooges funny, though he admitted this in later interviews. The thing he did that forever damned him in my eyes was puting on a nightclub act with two lesser-known fellow comics called "The New Three Stooges" after Moe died. It was a failure, as it should have been. No Moe Howard, no Stooges.

If there's a silver lining to Curly Joe DeRita's tenure with the Three Stooges, it's that it can be completely ignored. The movies are not part of the Columbia shorts, and it would be easy enough to go the rest of your life without encountering them. The Three Stooges, you say? Yes, I remember. Moe, Larry, Curly, then Shemp, then Joe. Broke up in 1957. Move along...nothing to see here.

Just like those Star Wars prequels. You betcha. Never happened.

Why They Don't Let Chicks Fly

Amelia Earhart
July 24, 1897 – (missing) July 2, 1937

There was a huge Wikipedia entry on pioneering female aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished into thin air on July 2, 1937...and sure, I could have quoted from it liberally. But I'm not about to do this. It's not that I don't trust Wikipedia. I mean, hell, it's full of lies, but that's never stopped me before. What stopped me was that the story of Amelia Earhart is a simple one. You don't need paragraph after paragraph of boring words to tell her tale.

In the end it's as simple as this: She had a plane. She had a womb. She disappeared.

That's really all we need to know. She and her co-pilot Fred Noonan went poof and the entire freakin' navy spent weeks looking for them, to no avail. There are tons of conspiracy theories stating that she faked her death, was abducted by aliens, became Tokyo Rose, was captured by cannibals, what have you. In truth she was probably trying to tune in soap operas on the plane's radio and caused the plane to dive right into the ocean. Am I right, fellas? Those chicks and their "stories"? It boggles the mind.

As a result, Amelia Earhart is the first, last, and only famous female aviator. There are no others because this one didn't work out so well. Am I wrong? I don't think I'm wrong.

It's like Danica Patrick. We're all pulling for her, but the first time she goes into a wall (God forbid), you'll never see another female Indy driver. It's just the way it goes. Women have equal rights, but not equal equal rights. Even after all this time it's not the same. Never will be.

Now, I'm not gonna say that women should be barefoot and pregnant. That's silly. I'm not a barbarian. Of course you can wear shoes. You're still gonna have to mow the lawn, after all. Now go make me a turkey pot pie, chop chop!

Sassy TV Waitresses of the '70s, Part 1

Shirley Hemphill
July 1, 1947 - Dec 10, 1999

I want to go out on a limb here and say that I never found What's Happening!! to be a classic of American television. I mean, I saw every episode multiple times, but that doesn't mean they were good. It just meant that it was on between Batman and Gilligan's Island in the afternoons and I had no life. It was a terrible show. I can see why this is controversial, but an argument can be made that there is a valid reason the cast has never appeared on Inside the Actor's Studio.

Much of the show's heat came from the interplay between fat teenager Rerun (Fred Berry) and fat waitress Shirley (Shirley Hemphill). These were a series of fat jokes they exchanged, but you could feel the raw sexual tension between them. You just knew there was something under the surface. There was fire in their eyes. When those cameras went off, it was wall-to-wall naked brown flesh...and lots of it.

I'm also going to go further out on the same limb and say that Shirley Hemphill never turned me on. She was all right, but I never found her joke delivery to my liking. Even after What's Happening!! ended after three seasons and she'd gotten her own short lived show (One in a Million) she didn't seem to grow. She spent the rest of her life playing essentially the same character (and literally played the same character in the 1985-88 syndicated sitcom What's Happening Now!!), but she had her moment, and she made a big enough impression that I'm writing these words about her a decade after her death.

On her TV show the Monday after Shirley Hemphill died, Rosie O'Donnell paid tribute to her by mentioning that she helped Rosie land her first paying gig in comedy. A sweet tribute, but Rosie had the hottest show on daytime TV at the time and never had her on when she was alive. She was also mentioned in the credits of Scary Movie, wherein her good friends the Wayans brothers dedicated the film to her. And misspelled her name.

If you really want to know how big of an impression she made on me, I'll grant you this. July 1, 2000 Walter Matthau died. July 1, 2004 Marlon Brando died. As a rule of this blog, I would have been able to write about them. But instead I saw Shirley Hemphill's name listed (July 1 being the date of her birth) and knew that there was no more important person I could write about today.