r.i.p. Bettie Page

Aw damn.

recent bettie photo : (

Majel Barret Roddenberry died.

She always seemed to be like a bad ass business woman. Someone who made a nuisance of herself because, otherwise, people were trying to dismiss her.

And Luwana Troi kind of rocked with all of her metallic caftans.

She will be missed.

awwww, majel. you rocked.

the guy who was deep throat died.

that is a real patriot. a guy who would do that because he loved his country so much. he had to have known there would be a legion of people who would call him a traitor, but he was far, far from it.

counselor troi's mom? aw, man. it was always so much fun watching her hit on picard.

RIP BETTY PAGE
there will never be another like you...

and Majel Barrett...i'm so sad to learn that. she was a pioneer in many ways on that show. i'll never forget that voice...it's what i always assume computers should sound like!

Eartha Kitt and that dude who played Johnny Cakes on The Sopranos.

Aw, man. A few days ago I posted Eartha Kitt doing her classic "Santa Baby" on another website. She was great friends with James Dean.

In many ways, my spiritual mother.

Santa Baby with some weirdly draggy backup singers. Eat your fucking heart out Madge, you'll never be as cool as Eartha.

Harold Pinter, too.

He recieved the Nobel Prize for Literaure in 2005. He was an amazing writer & wore a lot of other hats well to boot. Pinter had more ferociousness in his pinkie than I have in my whole body. I aspire.

One of the few musicals I like is the original Broadway production of Sondheim's "The Company". I performed "The Ladies Who Lunch" for Floorshow my junior year in HS & it name checks Pinter because he was a bad ass.

aw fuck. a friend and i were supposed to go see eartha when she came to town a few months ago.... i love that purr of hers...

Ann Savage, a 1940's femme fatale, died in her sleep.

Aww. I didn't even know she was still alive. I saw her in an old 40's movie called Detour, she was great.

Freddie Hubbard passed away yesterday. Great Jazz musician. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp6S6yOD6qM
RIP Mr. Hubbard.

Sculptor & husband of Anjelica Huston, Robert Graham, passed over the weekend. He made so many beautiful things, many of them civic works. Below are two of my favourites.

Charlie "Bird" Parker in Kansas City.

Joe Louis in Detroit.

Playwrite Dale Wasserman, who adapted Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" for the stage in 1963, died as well.

Thanks for saluting Freddie, Torch.

We were indeed.... "ready for Freddie..."

On his own, in the best chapter of the Jazz Messengers, and then participating in those avant garde classics...

[PS: Is Brewtown St Louis?]

John Travolta's son, Jett, died in the Bahamas, after a seizure. He was 16.

I just read that online as well, polly. So sad. =(

My heart goes out to them. I can't imagine what it would feel like to loose a child.

R.I.P. Ron Asheton - guitarist for the Stooges, hugely influential, died of a heart attack yesterday. ugh.

Amen to one of my favorite street walkin' cheetahs, bet he went out with a heart still full of napalm.

Richard Seavers, who published many of the Grove books that influenced my dark heart & perverse mind died. During his years at Grove he Published Burroughs' "Naked Lunch", both of Miller's "Tropics", Selby's "Last Exit to Brooklyn", etc. He also secretly translated the "Story of O" from it's original French for publication as well.

Gods, we lost Khan and The Prisoner on the same day. That is just not fair.

The artists Andrew Wyeth died today.

Coach Kay Yow (women's basketball coach) from North Carolina State.

I'm totally not a sports or NC fan of any sort, but she's been such a personality here and so courageous in her battle with breast cancer -- really an inspirational woman that impacted me.
I will miss her.

Freckle, I was really surprised about Coach Yow. Maybe that's silly because she's been battling cancer for so so long but I thought she was winning the battle. So sad. I suppose the one bright side is that she did so much for breast cancer awareness in this state in the final years of her life.

I'm surprised that Andrew Wyeth died recently, but mainly because I thought he was already dead. [hangs head in shame]

rose - don't sweat it, I'm a total art aficionado, and I thought Andrew Wyeth was already dead. whoops.

John Updike died .

No way! Wow. Following Mailer, I guess...?

RIP, Lux Interior of Cramps fame. "The Cramps don't pummel and you won't pogo. They ooze; you'll throb."

From "She Said":

"She comes up at me outta the bed
Pull her hair down the eye
Looks to me like a dyin' can of that commodity meat
And says
And says
Woo ee ah ah!
Woo ee ah ah!
Woo ee ah ah!
Woo ee ah ah!
Wooooeeeeahhh!"

Bikini Girls With Machine Guns

My old friend & former coworker "Jungle" Jim Chandler toured Europe with the Cramps back in '04. Wicked drummer, nice guy. I hope he's doing okay today & forever.

I can't believe I'll never get the chance to see them live on Halloween again. My heart goes out to Poison Ivy. ...*sniff*...

I wanna leave a happy memory
when I go, I wanna leave something
to let the whole world know,
that the rock in roll daddy has
a done passed on, but my bones
will keep a rockin' long after I've gone

Roll on
Rock on
Raw Bones
Well I still got all the rythm in these
Rockin' Bones

Well when I die don't you burry
me at all, Just nail my bones up on
the wall, Beneath these bones let
these words be seen, "This is the
bloody gears of a boppin' machine"

Roll on
Rock on
Raw Bones
Well I still got all the rythm in these
Rockin' Bones

I was listening to the Cramps all sad and this song came on, and I felt a little better. Still really pissed that I'll never have a chance to see them live, though. Maybe Lux's death will inspire a couple of good tribute shows...sigh...

Paul Harvey. My grandma loved Paul Harvey.

Paul Harvey was an indelible part of my childhood growing up in nw IN (he broadcast from Chicago so it was like he was down the street).
we'd never get dressed to go to school until the very last second in the winter.. dancing around the radio (on top of the fridge) while his show was on bc they always announced School Closings immediately after.
I believe I learned a lot about life and kindness and gentle irony from Paul Harvey.

I feel like I have lost a kindly old great-uncle.
he will be muchly missed.

Writer Horton Foote.

here, here. foote's screenplay for the film, "a trip to bountiful," makes me cry. a beautiful, beautiful story.

He's actually a relative of mine. Never met him, but would liked to have.

i know that this will mean absolutely nothing to anyone who isn't from seattle with a similar sensibility...


leroy menswear, i will miss you. you always managed to make me smirk. it was more than your hilariously unintentionally satirical name. i loved watching wannabe pimps walking out of your doors in brightly colored piss yellow, lime green, safety orange, and red ill fitting suits with matching hats and sneakers. your cable ads were the best comedy imaginable, bordering on parody, with your steroid stuffed ex-con's trying so hard to look sophisticated, but managing to be little more than lunkheaded moving wall paper. their checkerboard toothed smiles were the crowning touch, too. i loved your bling drenched accessories, ridiculous cartoon covered socks, ties and label whore logo covered outerwear. i loved your audacity, your choice to push suits instead sweats, and i will miss you. you will be one of those quietly mourned little shops like the beloved wigland, that, while most people don't frequent, they love. you add character to a city that is rapidly losing all of it's spice. the working class, neon filled, dive bar filled unpretentious burg i moved to has all but evaporated. the weeds of big bland brown-beige condos and shotty lofts have taken up space. holding their breath in this housing market, their empty space crowding out the 'lunchpails' that once jeered at the uppity fucks' limo that appeared once every 7 months. while wigland's been gone for more than five years there are seattle-ites who pause for a second when we walk by that block, our own little memorial to a lovely little seattle that is slipping away, and your absence just points up that sad fact.

rest in peace, leroy, rest in peace

Actor Ron Silver shuffled off this mortal coil.

that's just weird.

He really was a treat to watch on-screen.

His character, Bruno, in The West Wing was incredibly funny.

Wow, I had no idea that he'd been battling cancer. Poor man.

wait-- ron silver was on west wing?!

i always remember him best as alan dershiwitz in reversal of fortune. great movie.

Andrew "Test" Martin, the WWE/TNA wrestler died over the weekend. Cause of death unknown, awaiting autopsy. He's been out of wrestling for awhile, so maybe it didn't have to do with steroids, but I'm going to guess heart problems. He was a huge fucking guy.

gt, not as a series regular: he was a political analyst who worked on Bartlett's re-election post MS announcement in the third season and came back in the seventh season and worked on the republican Senator Vinick's (Alan Alda) campaign.

Natasha Richardson. That was so fast, the skiing accident yesterday, and now... Hopefully there will be no more headlines calling her Liam Neeson's wife, as if her own accomplishments on stage and in film were not deserving of recognition.

Edit:

and now sources have backtracked to say she is brain dead and nt expected to make it.

My heart goes out to her family. I have always adored Liam Neeson and been so jelous of Natasha Richardson. Here is a nice write up (from Defamer qtd. from Time Out) about her career:



I don't follow the stage much so I really did not realize how much she had accomplished there. I think her marraige to Liam Neeson is significent if only because it is a long marraige by Hollywood standards.

Hold up a minute. Natasha Richardson has not been declared dead yet (Jezebel and Time Out New York have corrected their initial reports). However, I read that she is not expected to survive.

According to the BBC she is in critical condition: NOT dead.