In Memoriam – Page 2

GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Punisher, punished

Posted on June 12, 2023June 12, 2023 by Mike

I seem to recollect mentioning here a time or three that the Left’s hatred for us is so deep, so frenzied, so caustically desperate that there really is nothing they can leave alone. We HAVE talked about that here before, right?

WELL. About all that.

A year ago progressive news outlets were calling the idea of the culture war a “right-wing conspiracy theory” that had no basis in reality. Yet, the injection of far-left politics into entertainment media had already started years previous, with noticeable propaganda efforts in movies, streaming television, children’s shows and books, even commercial advertising was replete with progressive ideological imagery by 2016 onward.

The goal is relatively obvious – To erase competing ideals and viewpoints while saturating the market with only one political vision; a woke vision. It’s called social engineering, and anyone who claims this is not happening in the US today is gaslighting.

Strangely, the American comic book industry has become a major battleground in the culture war, with heroic symbols being increasingly erased or hijacked as vehicles for woke talking points. A vast array of comic book characters are now race-swapped, converted to LGBT or they have had their histories rewritten to make them more “acceptable for modern audiences.” At the same time, they promote everything from BLM, to climate change propaganda, to gender identity politics and anti-gun messaging.

Why would leftists target something as frivolous as comic book heroes? Because pop-culture is first and foremost a playground where children grow up, and by rewriting heroes as social justice crusaders and communists they hope to indoctrinate the next generation.

The Punisher character (Frank Castle), originally created by writer Gerry Conway in 1974 with artists Ross Andru and John Romita, was a product of a chaotic era; a reaction to the rise of war, stagflation, instability and exploding crime rates in the US. The Punisher’s story is a tragedy of a returning military veteran whose family is killed during what seems to be a gangland hit. With federal agencies doing little to arrest the perpetrators, Castle takes matters into his own hands and begins systematically assassinating the criminals.

The Punisher as an icon has been highly popular among conservatives, military veterans and law enforcement officers in recent years. The trademark skull symbol can be found everywhere, with patches, gear and flags sporting the image, often as a representation of citizens taking matters into their own hands. The symbol was also seen at the January 6th protests.

This has made leftists at Marvel Comics livid. They first attempted to make fundamental changes to the character, including a redesign of his popular skull symbol, as well as taking away his guns and giving him swords in 2021. Instead of fighting against criminal organizations, Frank Castle joins with one, violating his fundamental code of ethics.

This month, though, Marvel officially declared the Punisher persona non grata, eliminating the character as readers know him. Did he go out in a blaze of glory? No, in typical woke fashion Frank Castle is captured by progressive heroes, chained up and forced to go through a struggle session in which he is admonished as a murderer and a terrorist. Marvel even brings the Punisher’s wife back from the dead, only so that she can divorce him and take his money and property, and then inform him that his lifelong crusade against the criminal underworld was all for nothing.

Marvel writers, including original Punisher creator Gerry Conway, specifically cite the popularity of the character among conservatives as the reason for his virtual elimination. As Newsweek noted, the Punisher was “problematic” for Marvel because conservatives liked him too much. He represents the every-man: He has no superpowers, he’s not a billionaire like Batman, but he still fights evil with an immovable will and a lot of guns.

Emphasis mine, because Jesus tapdancin’ CHRIST. I mean, seriously, folks: kill off a popular, profitable franchise entire simply because people you hate are among those who enjoy it? Sheesh. Mere “crazy” doesn’t even begin to cover this; it’s far too gentle a word to adequately describe it. Confirming yet again that these “people” truly are just totally, hopelessly, irremediably bugfuck nuts.

(Via Wes Renegade)

Lightfoot redux

Posted on May 25, 2023May 25, 2023 by Mike

Owing to Mark Steyn’s near-total absence from his SteynOnline site because of his long, slow convalescence from two (2!) heart attacks, I scarcely bother checking up there these days. So I missed his Gordon Lightfoot SteynMusic post, which as per usual is the definitive Last Word on the subject.

On February 18th 2010 Gordon Lightfoot was driving in Toronto en route to the office when he heard on the radio that he had died. In such circumstances, most of us would turn round and go back to bed. But Lightfoot kept on, to the office, and to new tour dates and live albums – for almost another decade-and-a-half. He died, for real, a few days before the Coronation, having been garlanded with every bauble in the gift of his native land – Commander of the Order of Canada, recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal – and honoured by his peers around the world. Here is what Mark had to say about him on the occasion of his eightieth birthday:

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr was born on November 17th 1938 in Orillia, Ontario, which is a straight shot north of Toronto, although you’ll be driving your Honda Civic through Lake Simcoe if you try it as the crow flies. Gordon Lightfoot Sr owned a large dry cleaner’s, and Mrs Lightfoot thought Junior had the makings of a child star. His first public solo performance was in Grade Four, over the school’s PA system for Parents’ Day, singing “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral”, an early example (1913) of a commercial pop song that everybody thinks is a(n) ancient traditional tune, which isn’t bad practice for a chap who’d eventually emerge in the “folk revival” of the early Sixties. He was a boy chorister in Orillia, and by the age of twelve singing in Toronto, at Massey Hall. At eighteen he went to Westlake College of Music in Hollywood to study jazz composition and orchestration, which I can’t honestly say I hear a lot of in his music. At any rate, he missed Canada and came home, and landed a spot in the Singing Swinging Eight, the square-dance group on the CBC’s “Country Hoedown”.

One day a couple of years later Gord thought back to how homesick he’d felt in Los Angeles. So he set down his five-month-old baby in a crib on the other side of the room, and wrote a song about it:

In the Early Morning Rain
With a dollar in my hand
With an aching in my heart
And my pockets full of sand
I’m a long ways from home
And I miss my loved one so
In the Early Morning Rain
With no place to go…

On rainy mornings in Los Angeles, a lonely Lightfoot liked to go to the airport and watch the planes take off. If you try that now at LAX, even if you survive the tasing or shooting, you’ll be on the no-fly list for thirty years. But back then it was different, and so a young songwriter wrote, in effect, a train song for the jet age. Just as Johnny Mercer heard the lonesome whistle blowing ‘cross the trestle, Gordon Lightfoot heard a wistful echo in the 707s on runway nine:

Hear the mighty engines roar
See the silver wings on high
She’s away and westward bound
Far above the clouds she’ll fly…

Except, of course, that there’s no boxcar on Pan Am or TWA:

You can’t jump a jet plane
Like you can a freight train
So I best be on my way
In the Early Morning Rain.

It was on his debut album – the exclamatory Lightfoot! – in 1966, by which time Ian & Sylvia, the Canadian folk act with the arrestingly prosaic name, and the Grateful Dead, the American rock band with the prosaically arresting name, had both recorded the number. And Judy Collins, George Hamilton IV and Peter, Paul and Mary had put it, respectively, on the Billboard album, country and pop charts. “Early Morning Rain” isn’t quite the first song Gordon Lightfoot wrote, but it was the first to get any notice internationally, and I do believe to this day it’s the most recorded of his compositions. Jerry Lee Lewis did it, and Paul Weller from The Jam, and the Kingston Trio, Eva Cassidy, Billy Bragg… oh, and Bob Dylan, on one of his worst received albums (first line of Greil Marcus’s Rolling Stone review: “What is this sh*t?”). It’s a simple song, and for my tastes it can go awry in the wrong key or an insufficient travelin’ accompaniment. The composer likes Elvis’s version, and so do I.

We probably should mention one other take on “Early Morning Rain” – as a marching song for the US Army:

In the Early Morning Rain
With my weapon in my hand
With an aching in my heart
I will make my final stand…

I’m not sure how the author feels about the rewrite, but maybe he could do a Canadian version for the Princess Patricias.

An oldie but goodie, the piece carries on from there in Mark’s usual surpassingly brilliant vein, of which you will surely want to read the all.

When football was FOOTBALL, by God

Posted on May 19, 2023May 19, 2023 by Mike

The unstoppable Jim Brown has finally been stopped, alas.

Jim Brown, one of football’s greatest ever, dies at 87
Jim Brown, one of the greatest professional and college football players of all time, has died. He was 87.

His wife, Monique, announced Brown’s death in an Instagram post Friday afternoon. She said Brown “passed peacefully” Thursday night in their home in Los Angeles.

“To the world he was an activist, actor, and football star,” the post stated. “To our family he was a loving and wonderful husband, father, and grandfather. Our hearts are broken…”

In 2020, Brown was selected to the NFL 100 all-time team and also was ranked as the No. 1 all-time player on the College Football 150 list to celebrate those sports’ anniversaries. He was named the greatest football player ever by the Sporting News in 2002.

Brown, who was selected in the first round of the 1957 draft, played nine seasons for the Cleveland Browns (1957-65) and led the league in rushing eight of those years. He rushed for 12,312 yards and averaged 5.2 yards per carry over his career. He also was named a Pro Bowler every year he played. He led the Browns to the league championship game three times, winning the title in 1964, and was named MVP three times.

He ran for at least 100 yards in 58 of his 118 regular-season games, never missing a game. He rushed for more than 1,000 yards in seven seasons, including 1,527 yards in one 12-game season and 1,863 in a 14-game season.

As a diehard Cowboys fan when I was a kid, I absolutely HATED it whenever the Browns QB put the football in Jim Brown’s hands, knowing all too well what was gonna happen next to my poor ‘Boys on the Doomsday Defense squad. And sure enough, the accompanying vid features a remembrance from Cowboys Hall of Famer Bob Lilly. Be sure to click over and watch it; Rosey Grier’s comment alone is worth the trip.

(Via Ed Driscoll)

Heaven’s own band just got a little bit better

Posted on May 2, 2023May 2, 2023 by Mike

Aww, no.

GORDON LIGHTFOOT DEAD AT 84
Gordon Lightfoot, a folk music and soft rock icon of the 1970s, is dead … according to his publicist.

Gordon, best known for his hit, “If You Could Read My Mind,” passed away Monday evening in Toronto, where he’d been hospitalized. His publicist, Victoria Lord, did not say why he was getting medical treatment or release a cause of death.

Ummm…best known for “If You Could Read My Mind,” SRSLY? Forgive me for saying so and all, but I doubt very much that that’s the one which will spring immediately to mind for most people. Personally, this will always be one of my faves.

There’s a cpl of latter-day in-concert pics included at the above-linked and -quoted obit which are truly ghastly. No matter, though; Lightfoot’s “Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” is a pluperfect example of stellar songwriting and nimble, understated performance—a rare earwig of a story-song that, once you’ve heard it, will forever remain in your head and heart..and you won’t mind at all.

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck/Sayin’ “Fellas, it’s too rough t’feed ya.”/At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said/“Fellas, it’s been good t’know ya! Now THAT is some seriously good squishy, folks. I must’ve heard it a blue million times, but those lines STILL give me chills every time I hear ‘em again. From the song’s Wikipedia entry:

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is a 1976 hit song written, composed and performed by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot to commemorate the sinking of the bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. Lightfoot drew his inspiration from Newsweek’s article on the event, “The Cruelest Month”, which it published in its November 24, 1975, issue. Lightfoot considered this song to be his finest work.

The song recounts the final voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald, as it experienced troubles then sank in rough seas on Lake Superior, late in the shipping season. Written before the wreckage of the ship was found, it deviates from the known sequence of events, and contains some artistic omissions and paraphrases. In a later interview, Lightfoot recounted how he had agonised over possible inaccuracies while trying to pen the lyrics, until producer Lenny Waronker advised him to play to his artistic strengths and “just tell a story”. Lightfoot’s passion for recreational sailing on the Great Lakes informs his ballad’s verses throughout.

A relatively minor hit when it was orginally released, “Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” has lived on on classic rock radio playlists ever since, its near-universal popularity with listeners never fading—which is pretty danged good for an easy-listening, subtle folk-rock ballad, I should think. Rest easy, Gordon Lightfoot. You won’t soon be forgotten.

Headless body in topless bar

Posted on April 17, 2023April 18, 2023 by Mike

The backstory of “the most anatomically evocative headline in the history of American journalism.“

This month marks the 40th anniversary of a watershed moment in journalism: the publication of the “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline on the front page of the New York Post.

Headlines sell newspapers — at least, they sell the print newspapers offered via those relics known as newsstands. In 1983, almost all of the 965,000 daily newspapers that rolled out of the Post’s building in Lower Manhattan were sold on newsstands.

No one on the Post’s news desk debated the news value of the story: A Brooklyn man named Charles Dingle shot Queens bar owner Herbert Cummings to death and held patrons hostage. When Dingle learned that one was a mortician, he ordered her to behead the victim. Dingle, a box containing the head next to him, was arrested in an unlicensed cab in Manhattan. (Dingle died in prison in 2012, according to New York state records.)

The New York Times also covered the story, stuffing it on Page 2 of the Metropolitan section under the headline, “Owner of a Bar Shot to Death; Suspect Is Held.”

There would have been no Post headline without the gory story. Reporter Jim Norman wrote in a 2012 recollection that the police teletype in the newsroom had two items — one about the discovery in Manhattan of a cardboard box containing a head and the other about the discovery in a Queens bar of a mutilated torso. Norman said he helped to connect the dots as the “headless body” angle riveted the newsroom.

The headline went viral, by 20th-century standards. (then-NYPost managing editor Vincent) Musetto was on David Letterman’s show. It also was the title of a black comedy in the mid-1990s.

In this digital age, when search engine optimization rewards literal headlines and punishes wordplay, “Headless Body in Topless Bar” could perform well online. Was it too over the top? When veteran editor Steve Dunleavy heard criticism at the time, he supposedly replied, “What should we have said? Decapitated cerebellum in tavern of ill repute?”

Musetto always said his favorite headline was “Granny Executed in Her Pink Pajamas” over the 1984 story about the execution of Margie Velma Barfield, who killed her husband in North Carolina. (Musetto seemed to get all the good stories. My own favorite from my year at the Post was “Art thieves take the Monet and run.”)

Heh. Good stuff, that is, from a lost era before the qualities of wry, frisky humor; convention-straining wordplay; hard-boiled iconoclasm; and an above-all-else dedication to Getting The Story encoded in the DNA of crusty, old-school reporters with the de rigeur pint of whiskey tucked away in the bottom desk drawer had all been exorcised in favor of today’s fear-mongering; obeisance to Big Government and the urgenturgentURGENT!!! blandishments of “experts”; and lickspittle fealty to the PC/Woke/Hard Left agenda entire—a noxious hell-brew that poisoned bona-fide American journalism as it had previously been known fatally, and for all time.

Back in the 90s when I was living in NYC, the Post was the only daily I cared much about purchasing and perusing. NY Newsday plainly and simply sucked, on those occasions when it wasn’t infuriating; then again, it was an offshoot of Long Island-centric Newsday, and what sophisticated, urbane Manhattanite such as moi cared a whit about what those yokels might get themselves up to way out there in the boonies, anyway?

The WSJ was meh, boring, and still is. The Old Grey Whore (a/k/a the NYT) had nearly completed her long, slow slide into total hyperpartisan irrelevance and rank dishonesty; the NY Daily News was middle-of-the-road bland, making it a small cut above the rest of the shitlib propaganda broadsheets.

Later, 2002 would see a short-lived stab at reviving the old NY Sun, but despite the sly, self-deprecating insider-witticism of being printed on piss-yellow paper early on (because yellow journalism, get it?), the Sun failed to distinguish itself otherwise and thus quickly died the death, at least in its print version. Maybe it was good, who knows; although I was still spending a lot of my time in NYC, I still can’t remember ever even reading the thing, honestly.

As for the rest of NYC’s then-crowded field of news outlets: weekly radical-Left alternarag The Village Voice…well, most of the people I hung out with bought it exclusively for the voluminous rock-show and apartment-for-rent listings; amusing if frequently scandalous, even pornographic, personal ads; and maybe Nat Hentoff, among the small handful of my punk-rocker pals who cared about topical affairs.

When it came along, Russ Smith’s NY Press felt like a welcome breath of fresh air to NYC’s minuscule minority of RightWingNaziDeathBeasts like me, but it was short on the aforementioned Voice features New Yorkers had come to rely on. Even though I bought a copy every week the minute it appeared at the bodega down the street and read it cover to cover, I never for a minute thought it could ever amount to serious, credible competition for the Voice. And that’s pretty much how it went, eventually.

Maybe the best thing about this noteworthy anniversary of an unforgettable tabloid headline is that The Power hasn’t gotten around to outlawing any remembrance or remark upon such lighthearted, entertaining mass-media insouciance yet. You can bet they’re probably working on it, though.

Serendipitous embed

Posted on March 7, 2023March 7, 2023 by Mike

So I recently re-connected with an old and very dear friend of mine from New Jersey I had lost touch with for the last several years, which reunion I was happy enough about to be inspired to make a custom ringtone for her on my sail foam. I settled on this great old song from the Fastest Guitarist In The West, otherwise referred to as the great Alvin Lee. It’s good enough that I thought I’d put it out here, just for grins.

Lee’s star began its rise after his performance at Woodstock, his fame then cemented by a confirmational tenure as singer/guitarist/songwriter/frontman for Ten Years After—a pop-chart-hitmaker outfit he decided to walk away from in preference for a long, stellar solo career playing more bluesy stuff like the above toothsome confection. He would go on to work with just about everybody who’s anybody in the rock and roll universe, bless his heart, and kept on a-rockin’ until his death in Spain in 2013. God rest ye, Alvin, and thanks for all the good music you left for us.

Has it really been that long?

Posted on March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Mike

Glenn reminds us of an important anniversary: it’s been 11 dreary years since the inimitable Andrew Breitbart, le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, left us. A fine time, I think, to rerun this inspiring clip.

They say that no man is irreplaceable, and maybe it’s true. But if so, he came as close to being one as any mere mortal ever has, or probably ever will. An indefatigable, dauntless warrior for freedom; an intellectually-nimble man no puling Leftist could ever hope to intimidate or shout down; a man who casually shrugged off every barb The Enemy could think to hurl his way with never a flinch, misstep, or stumble, we need Andrew Breitbart with us now more than we ever have before.

They just don’t make ’em like that anymore

Posted on February 16, 2023February 16, 2023 by Mike

And that’s quite a loss, for all of us.

Raquel Welch remembered by Hollywood after death at 82: ‘Professional and glamorous beyond belief’

Hollywood is mourning the death of actress Raquel Welch.

The superstar, who catapulted to fame in the 1960s with “Fantastic Voyage” and “One Million Years B.C.,” died Wednesday at the age of 82, her rep, Steve Sauer, confirmed to Fox News Digital.

“Raquel Welch, the legendary bombshell actress of film, television and stage, passed away peacefully early this morning after a brief illness,” Sauer said. “The 82-year-old actress burst into Hollywood in her initial roles in ‘One Million [Years] B.C.’ and ‘Fantastic Voyage.’”

“Her career spanned over 50 years starring in over 30 films and 50 television series and appearances. The Golden Globe winner, in more recent years, was involved in a very successful line of wigs. Raquel leaves behind her two children, son Damon Welch and her daughter, Tahnee Welch.”

In her heyday, which lasted longer than most, Raquel Welch was simply one of the most gorgeous women on the face of the Earth. Her name became a byword for the curvaceous, smoking-hot Hollywood bombshell archetype, and deservedly so. Fare thee well, Raquel.

RaquelWelch

Fare thee well

Posted on January 27, 2023January 27, 2023 by Mike

At least he went out relatively easy, cold comfort though that is to those who knew and loved him best, and will miss him most.

Gerard Vanderleun: December 26, 1945 – January 27, 2023

Gerard died peacefully in the small hours of the morning.

He left instructions to me for two last posts of his that he wanted me to publish on his blog. I will probably do that tomorrow. I also will be cross-posting a few more essays of my own about Gerard, but I will keep his two last posts pinned at the top of the page there. Therefore you’ll need to scroll down past them to get to any new ones.

I knew GVDL myself and considered him a friend, having worked closely with him to redesign and rebuild his website for him some years back. He was a truly nice guy, easygoing and laid back, with a zillion and one funny and interesting tales to tell, and I liked him. I hate that he’s gone, but I’m happy to hear that it was peaceful at least. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, Gerard.

Update! Somehow, thinking about Gerard put me in mind of this truly deathless masterpiece by Claude Debussy.

Not quite what one would think of first as funeral music, maybe. But I dunno, it feels appropriate to me.

Southern gentleman

Posted on January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 by Mike

His hallowed name will resonate deeply in the hearts and minds of every proudly unreconstructed Southron forever and ever.

Robert E. Lee, in full Robert Edward Lee, (born January 19, 1807, Stratford Hall, Westmoreland county, Virginia, U.S.—died October 12, 1870, Lexington, Virginia), U.S. Army officer (1829–61), Confederate general (1861–65), college president (1865–70), and central figure in contending memory traditions of the American Civil War.

Robert Edward Lee was the son of Henry (“Light-horse Harry”) Lee and Ann Hill Carter Lee. His father had been a hero of the American Revolution and governor of Virginia, and uncles and other relatives had signed the Declaration of Independence, served in Congress, and otherwise achieved notable reputations. When Lee was age six, his father moved to the West Indies and never returned, leaving the family in financially straightened circumstances.

Lee entered the United States Military Academy in 1825 and graduated second in the class of 1829. Fellow cadets referred to him as the “Marble Model”—a nickname that reflected envy as well as admiration. Just under six feet (1.8 metres) tall, with black hair and brown eyes, Lee cut a striking figure. High class ranking entitled him to enter the Engineer Corps as a second lieutenant on July 1, 1829.

More than a decade and half passed before Lee saw a battlefield. Promotions to first lieutenant (September 21, 1836) and to captain (July 7, 1838) punctuated his peacetime engineering service. In June 1831 Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the only daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington. The couple would share a 39-year marriage that produced four daughters and three sons. Lee took seriously the ties to George Washington, whom he sought to emulate throughout his life.

On May 13, 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico. Between March and September 1847, Lee served on the staff of Winfield Scott during a campaign that ended with the capture of Mexico City. Lee impressed superiors throughout these operations and won brevet promotions to major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel.

As sectional stresses related to the institution of slavery mounted in the 1850s, Lee held the superintendency of the United States Military Academy (1852–55) and later served as lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Cavalry in Texas. In 1859 he was in Washington, D.C., when the abolitionist John Brown mounted his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Summoned to the War Department on October 17, Lee proceeded to Harpers Ferry with a detachment of Marines and the next morning orchestrated the capture of Brown, whom he described as an “enemy of the Country.”

Which, y’know, he in fact was, in light of the deadly and disastrous conflagration Brown’s murderous fanaticism helped to touch off.

Ever since Lee’s illustrious, entirely admirable conduct of himself as the CSA’s foremost general, he has been held up as a role model for young Southern boys, a pluperfect exemplar of what every Southern man should always strive to be. This is only meet and just, a well-earned plaudit for a true paragon among men. For me, the great Robert E Lee will always be a hero, plain and simple. Shitlib Yankees inclined to disparage him ought to pay careful heed to the righteous words of Merle Haggard.

PREACH it, brother.

Five years gone

Posted on January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 by Mike

I began working on this post earlier yesterday, Jan 15th being the actual anniversary date of Dolores O’Riordan’s death in 2018, but balked at finishing the damnable thing. For any fan of O’Riordan’s music (and I most definitely am that), let alone the family and friends who loved her best, it’s a most painful anniversary indeed. In the end, though, I just couldn’t let it go by unremarked.

What an incredible talent she was. From Wikipedia:

Dolores Mary Eileen O’Riordan (/oʊˈrɪərdən/ oh-REER-dən; 6 September 1971 – 15 January 2018) was an Irish musician, singer and songwriter. She was best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist for the alternative rock band the Cranberries. One of the most recognizable voices in rock in the 1990s, she was known for her lilting mezzo-soprano voice, signature yodel, emphasized use of keening, and strong Limerick accent.

O’Riordan was born in County Limerick, Ireland, to a Catholic working-class family. She began to perform as a soloist in her church choir before leaving secondary school to join the Cranberries in 1990. Recognised for her “unique” voice, she quickly achieved worldwide fame. During her lifetime, she released seven studio albums with the Cranberries, including four number-one albums. Over the years, she contributed to the release of Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? (1993), No Need to Argue (1994), To the Faithful Departed (1996), Bury the Hatchet (1999) and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (2001) before taking a six-year hiatus starting in 2003.

O’Riordan’s first solo album, Are You Listening?, was released in May 2007 and was followed up by No Baggage in August 2009. She reunited with the Cranberries the same year. The band released Roses (2012) and went on a world tour. She appeared as a judge on RTÉ‘s The Voice of Ireland during the 2013–14 season. In April 2014, O’Riordan joined and began recording new material with the trio D.A.R.K. Throughout her life, she had to overcome personal challenges. O’Riordan struggled with depression and the pressure of her own success, and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2015. She subsequently released her last album with the group, Something Else (2017).

O’Riordan died from drowning due to alcohol intoxication in January 2018. The following year, the Cranberries released the Grammy-nominated album In the End (2019), featuring her final vocal recordings, and subsequently disbanded. With the Cranberries, O’Riordan sold more than 40 million albums worldwide during her lifetime; that total increased to almost 50 million albums worldwide as of 2019, excluding her solo albums. In the US, she was awarded fourteen Platinum album certifications by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and in Canada, ten Platinum certifications. In the UK, she received five Platinum certifications. She was honoured with the Ivor Novello International Achievement award, and in the months following her death, she was named “The Top Female Artist of All Time” on Billboard‘s Alternative Songs chart.

Tragically, Dolores had a pretty tough go of things, beginning early on in her life.

In 2013, O’Riordan told LIFE Magazine she was molested for four years starting when she was 8 years old by someone whom she trusted.

The rocker often talked about how motherhood was her priority, and also said having children changed her life for the better. “The kids were actually completely elemental in my healing process,” she told LIFE about trying to move on from the abuse.

In 2011, O’Riordan was also devastated after losing her father Terence to cancer. “I felt him around me a lot for a while. I could feel him trying to protect me and communicate with me,” she told Billboard last year.

She also revealed to the Belfast Telegraph that she “tried to overdose” in 2013, but that she was “meant to stay here for the kids.”

Additionally, she opened up to the outlet about her struggles with substance abuse. “I am pretty good but sometimes I hit the bottle,” she said. “Everything is way worse the next morning. I have a bad day when I have bad memories and I can’t control them and I hit the bottle. I kind of binge drink. That is kind of my biggest flaw at the moment.”

But enough of all that sort of thing. When we remember Dolores O’Riordan, let it be her soaring, lovely voice which transcends the despair for us, lighting up mortal darkness in the way that only music can ever do.

Rest easy, Dolores, and be ye now and forevermore at peace.

Elvis’ little darling succumbs…to SUDDENLY™?

Posted on January 13, 2023 by Mike

Well, dang.

Lisa Marie Presley Suffers Heart Attack, Dies at 54 After Appearing at Golden Globes
We’re not supposed to ask if it was the jabs.

Well no, of course not. That would be unpossible, don’tchaknow.

Happy 100th birthday

Posted on December 11, 2022 by Mike

To the incomparable Charles Schultz.

The 100th anniversary of the late cartoonist Charles Schulz’s birthday came and went last week without any notice anywhere, that I saw. And so, with thanks to Mark, I pen my own little tribute here to one of the great creative geniuses in American history.

If you were young at any time between 1950 (when Schulz first began publishing his comic strip Peanuts) and 2000, when Schulz died at the age of 77, you grew up in a world in which everyone read the latest Peanuts comic strip (particularly in the US and Canada) as part of their daily newspaper reading ritual.

In that world, Peanuts comic strip panels—carefully cut from the newspaper—adorned refrigerators, bedroom walls, lockers, office bulletin boards, everywhere you went; Peanuts characters adorned T-shirts and lunch boxes; Peanuts references peppered everyday conversations; and Peanuts television specials attracted as many adult viewers as child viewers.

Most remarkably, in that world, Peanuts story lines, themes, and characters resided so deeply in the North American psyche, they had come to serve as crucial cognitive tools for enabling people to experience, make sense of, and communicate about themselves and the world around them.

On that last point, think of how many times you’ve said, or heard someone say, “It’s Lucy with the football”. The reference instantly transmits not just an insight into the true dynamics of a situation, but an insight with powerful emotional valence. In a flash, you think back to all those strips showing Lucy fooling Charlie Brown again…and you re-experience your own past feeling of wanting to believe in something so badly, you’ve forgotten what history has already taught you, and you’ve started to fall prey to the persuasions of someone who just won’t deliver in the end. Think of Lucy holding that football, and you inevitably start to wonder if, in this case, you’ve turned into Charlie Brown. It’s a reality check.

That it surely is. Tal goes on from there to, as he puts it, “touch on a few deeper issues,” in his usual erudite and adroit fashion. To wit:

People naturally tend to think of earlier generations as somewhat benighted compared to us in our present age. We assume those before us didn’t have the awareness we have, or the depth, sophistication, or imagination. And certainly, we might be tempted to imagine that about an era in which “The Andy Griffith Show”, “Gilligan’s Island”, and “My Three Sons” were the biggest shows going, as opposed to, say, “Narcos”, or whatever the latest serial killer series Netflix is running now. Or where the biggest pop stars were Frankie Valli, Dion, and Patti Page, as opposed to our present collection of convicted felons, prostitutes, drug addicts, pimps, and Satanists.

But Peanuts often went deep. One example is the daring surrealism Schulz inserted into the strip, particularly through the character of Charlie Brown’s beagle, Snoopy.

Sitting alone on top of his doghouse, Snoopy regularly hallucinates himself back in time to World War I. Once there, he often finds himself in air battle as a fighter pilot. In these moments, his doghouse is no longer a doghouse. It is a Sopwith Camel outfitted with Vickers machine guns. His main job is to kill Germans (particularly the flying ace Manfred von Richthofen); but in various sequences, he carries messages through trenches filled with the wounded, gets shot down behind enemy lines, dates local French girls, and laments the deaths of his fallen comrades.

Schulz goes farther. He ends up casting these episodes as perhaps more than hallucinations. In one strip, for example, Charlie Brown stands before his school classroom to read a paper on the flu epidemic of 1918. He then reveals it was actually Snoopy who wrote it, since Snoopy was there throughout the crisis. Snoopy stands next to Charlie Brown in class, dressed in his World War I flying gear. That Schulz never definitively explains what’s going on with the fantasy sequences only heightens our emotional engagement with the sequences.

Bachman’s deft analysis continues from there. Read of it, for It Is Good.

Horror show

Posted on November 12, 2022November 12, 2022 by Mike

A terrible, terrible tragedy at a Warbirds show in Dallas today.

Another video of the mid-air collision involving B-17 bomber and a small plane at Dallas Executive Airport pic.twitter.com/w7llZmvCGZ

— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) November 12, 2022

The midair occurred when the pilot of a Confederate Air Force (now known as the Commemorative AF, I’m sure for the obvious reason) Bell P63 Kingcobra inadvertently flew into the B17’s airspace, hitting the bomber just behind its port-side wingroot, near as I can make out. Everybody is probably familiar with the B17 Flying Fortress, I expect much less so for the P63, so here ya go.

Two old warbirds — *Bell P63 with the justly renowned, and vastly superior, P51 Mustang*

The Kingcobra was the successor to the P39 Aerocobra (or Airacobra, as the RAF dubbed it), a pursuit/interceptor aircraft with which its pilots had what you might call a love/hate relationship. Although the P39 was adequately armed and sturdy enough generally, the heavy airframe was hindered in aerial combat by an excruciatingly poor rate of climb and relatively low ceiling. While the P39 saw service in nearly every national air force and all theaters in WW2, the P63 only saw action with the Soviet Air Force, and was rejected by the USAAF, even though it surpassed the capabilities of its near-ubiquitous older brother in every possible way.

Both the P39’s and P63’s original powerplant was the same Allison V-1710 V12 engine that condemned the P51 Mustang to also-ran status in its early career, until it was eventually replaced with the more-powerful, just-plain-better Rolls Royce Merlin, instantly transforming the Mustang into the legendary world-beater it was destined to be.

I’ve attended many Warbirds airshows, which are always wonderful, and know the CAF pilots and ground-crews to be highly-skilled, seasoned devotees of the old WW2-era piston-engine warplanes, meticulous to the nth degree about maintenance and safety. I hate so much to see something like this happen, I truly do. May God receive into His mighty arms the souls of the men who left this mortal coil this awful afternoon, and grant to them eternal peace.

Update! Six dead: five B17 crew, and the P63 pilot. Prayers up, y’all.

The Last Man Standing stands no more

Posted on October 29, 2022October 30, 2022 by Mike

As you would assume, I am indeed working on my Jerry Lee Lewis remembrance/obit. There’s a couple of documents I’m trying to get my hands on for it, which apparently do not exist on the innarnuts anywhere. In fact, one of them I know for sure is in the sole and exclusive possession of our former manager, who as far as I know is the only guy who has a copy of the thing. Unfortunately, Mike isn’t at all web-savvy, so I doubt he has the means to scan it and send it over to me, or would know how even if he did. We’ll see about that, I suppose. More coming, as and when…

Update! YES!!! Got ’em both, I can hardly believe it. Okay, folks, stay tuned, this is gonna be good.

Updated update! Okay, here we go. Somewhat atypically for these rock and roll-icon obits of mine, I did NOT ever get to meet or hang out with Jerry Lee Lewis, to my great disappointment. We DID have a show scheduled with him once, at the legendary Tramps in NYC. To wit:

Big night — *Would’ve been our first Really Big Show at Tramp’s, but alas, t’was not to be*

What showed up in lieu of The Killer that night was a doctor’s note (those with older eyes can click here to embiggen):

Mind, now, this was the selfsame Dr Nick who was widely despised among fans of the King as the Man Who Killed Elvis, the guy who for years had signed off on whatever self-prescribed drugs Elvis was of a mind to indulge in that particular evening. He’s also the real-life personage from whence The Simpsons‘ Dr Nick Rivera got his name:

The character design of Dr. Nick is based somewhat on Gábor Csupó, of Klasky Csupo studios, who was originally from Hungary—the animators mistakenly believed Hank Azaria was impersonating Gabor, when in fact the voice was actually a bad imitation of Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy.

His name came from George Nichopoulos, nicknamed Dr. Nick, Elvis Presley‘s personal physician who was indicted on 14 counts of over-prescribing drugs to Presley and several other patients in the years following Presley’s death. While Nichopoulos was acquitted of those charges, his medical license was revoked by the Tennessee medical authorities in 1993.

And there you have it. When that fateful note from Dr Nick finally did show up at Tramps instead of Jerry Lee it scared me half to death, because Terry Dunne, the owner and founder of Tramp’s, asked me right away if we’d be willing to go on and take the whole show anyhow, three sets instead of the agreed-upon two. I mean, who wouldn’t be scared, right? The joint was packed with people who had paid top buck to see Jerry Lee Lewis, only to learn they’d be getting a full night of the lowly if up-and-coming Belmont Playboys in his stead? My God, I thought, these people are gonna KILL us!

To the contrary, it all went quite well; we were warmly received, the dreaded mass stampede for the exits when it was announced that Lewis wouldn’t be appearing never happened, and we did a good show despite the jacked-up Fear Factor.

No, I never did get to meet the Killer, but he still wound up being one of my biggest personal influences nonetheless. That came about the night of a different show a few years later, when the BPs were to play at the old Park Elevator in CLT, situated in the century-old, decaying and decrepit Park Elevator building, before it burned up, was refurbished, and turned into condos like all the other old buildings around here.

Now, the Park Elevator was notoriously rickety in places, but as it happens there was a low entryway that led directly out onto the stage. In those days, I was the proud owner of a 71 Shovelhead FLH, fully tricked out with, among other things, a suicide shift and 20-inch apes sitting atop 5-inch risers:

Wheels — *Me, my beloved 61 Galaxy, and the ol’ Shovel*

So naturally, I conceived the brilliant notion that hey, wouldn’t it be just the most awesome thing ever if I rode the bike onto the stage when we went on? My friend Joe was also there on his hotrod Evo Sporty, and was quite eager to join me in risking my fool neck to ride his Harley out onto the stage through that tiny, low door also. So low was said portal, in fact, that I had to yank my apehangers back and down to even get through it; the damned bars were way too tall to go in as they were.

But no matter; such a minor obstacle could never be sufficient to deter a dedicated Jerry Lee wannabe like myself. Right before we were to do our dirty deed, I asked one of the proprietors of the Park Elevator, Tim Blong, if he thought the stage would be able to support all that weight without collapsing into rubble and killing us all. He shrugged eloquently, muttered, “Dunno, man, maybe?” and grinned. Joe turned to me with a slightly troubled look on his mug, as if to ask, “Well, we doin’ this or what?”

Which was when I asked myself what would come to be the eternal question for me regarding any outrageous, dangerous, or just plain stupid stunt I was thinking about attempting to pull off: What Would Jerry Lee Do?

The answer, of course, was always the same, being eminently obvious given the Killer’s hard-won reputation for bold, daredevil antics. We fired up the scoots, rode through that tiny door with our heads ducked way down low, put the bikes on the kickstands one on each side of the stage, and the show went on, as it always and forever must. A few fun facts about the Killer:

The last survivor of a generation of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Lewis died at his Mississippi home, south of Memphis, Tennessee, representative Zach Farnum said in a release. The news came two days after the publication of an erroneous TMZ report of his death, later retracted.

Of all the rock rebels to emerge in the 1950s, few captured the new genre’s attraction and danger as unforgettably as the Louisiana-born piano player who called himself “The Killer.”

Tender ballads were best left to the old folks. Lewis was all about lust and gratification, with his leering tenor and demanding asides, violent tempos and brash glissandi, cocky sneer and crazy blond hair. He was a one-man stampede who made the fans scream and the keyboards swear, his live act so combustible that during a 1957 performance of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” on “The Steve Allen Show,” chairs were thrown at him like buckets of water on an inferno.

“There was rockabilly. There was Elvis. But there was no pure rock ’n ’roll before Jerry Lee Lewis kicked in the door,” a Lewis admirer once observed. That admirer was Jerry Lee Lewis.

Heh. Pure, 24-karat Jerry Lee right there. Nobody ever saw his like before, and we never will again. Y’all might be familiar with the story of the night Lewis rammed his Cadillac into the front gate at Graceland, perhaps. Lewis, drunk as a boiled owl, was hauled off by the gendarmerie hollering at Elvis to come on out like a man so’s they could finally settle who the REAL King Of Rock And Roll was once and for all. More:

Lewis had a run of top 10 country hits between 1967-70, and hardly mellowed at all. He performed drinking songs such as “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)”, the roving eye confessions of “She Still Comes Around” and a dry-eyed cover of a classic ballad of abandonment, “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye.” He had remained popular in Europe and a 1964 album, “Live at the Star Club, Hamburg,” is widely regarded as one of the greatest concert records.

A 1973 performance proved more troublesome: Lewis sang for the Grand Ole Opry and broke two longstanding rules — no swearing and no non-country songs.

“I am a rock and rollin’, country-and-western, rhythm and blues-singin’ motherf—–,” he told the audience.

Lewis married seven times, and was rarely far from trouble or death. His fourth wife, Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate, drowned in a swimming pool in 1982 while suing for divorce. His fifth wife, Shawn Stephens, 23 years his junior, died of an apparent drug overdose in 1983. Within a year, Lewis had married Kerrie McCarver, then 21. She filed for divorce in 1986, accusing him of physical abuse and infidelity. He countersued, but both petitions eventually were dropped. They finally divorced in 2005 after several years of separation. The couple had one child, Jerry Lee III.

Another son by a previous marriage, Steve Allen Lewis, 3, drowned in a swimming pool in 1962, and son Jerry Lee Jr. died in a traffic accident at 19 in 1973. Lewis also had two daughters, Phoebe and Lori Leigh, and is survived by his wife Judith.

His finances were also chaotic. Lewis made millions, but he liked his money in cash and ended up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service. When he began welcoming tourists in 1994 to his longtime residence near Nesbit, Mississippi — complete with a piano-shaped swimming pool — he set up a 900 phone number fans could call for a recorded message at $2.75 a minute.

There’s always more to say about the inimitable Jerry Lee Lewis, and there will always be too. I’m sad he’s gone, at the same time I can hardly believe he didn’t die on us thirty or forty years ago, buck-wild as he was. The Killer grabbed life by the scruff of its neck and lived the ever-lovin’ hell out of it, from start to finish. With that, enjoy a so-called “lost track” recorded back in the year I was born, 1960, that’s long been Number One with a bullet on my own personal Jerry Lee Lewis hit parade, complete with a bit of studio chatter from the Killer himself.

That patter beforehand has actually been bowdlerized somewhere along the way. In the version I had, the track begins with a runner in the control room hollering to the Killer, asking what he wants to eat. Jerry Lee responds, “What am I gon’ eat? I’d like to eat a little pussy if you got some,” followed by an extremely salacious sluuurrp sound and a smacking of the lips. Jerry then laughs that great laugh of his, and yells “STONED!!!” After that is when the “That’ll be the only place you can play it” part included in the vid comes in.

And then the one and only Killer hits that big, fat power-chord—Jerry Lee was the only guy I ever heard of capable of producing power-chords on a piano, which formed the basis of his whole playing style—and we’re off and running. “Birthday Cake” also features probably his best-ever solo, a pounding, pulsating, joyous break that’s a thing of wonder every time I hear it. And I’ve heard it a thousand times.

The great Jerry Lee Lewis was a genuine American original: a rowdy, relentless Southern roughneck who neither knew nor cared one whit about such trivial irrelevancies as giving up, giving in, backing off, or calming the fuck down. He lived the way he played, WTFO and balls to the wall. May the Good Lord bless and keep his indomitable, irrepressible spirit forever.

Category: In Memoriam

Punisher, punished

Lightfoot redux

When football was FOOTBALL, by God

Heaven’s own band just got a little bit better

Headless body in topless bar

Serendipitous embed

Has it really been that long?

They just don’t make ’em like that anymore

Fare thee well

Southern gentleman

Five years gone

Elvis’ little darling succumbs…to SUDDENLY™?

Happy 100th birthday

Horror show

The Last Man Standing stands no more

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