nonamedufus

*Note: Due to a technical glitch this post should have posted June 28th. Sorry for the inconvenience. In a bit of a departure, this week Sunday Funnies takes a look at how the editorial cartoonists, over the years, treated the self-proclaimed King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Here's a bit of a different retrospective of Jackson, who died Thursday at the age of 50.

Comedian, movie and television star Dom DeLuise died today. He was 75. He is probably best known for starring in a string of films with buddy Burt Reynolds; together they appeared in the films The Cannonball Run and Cannonball Run II, Smokey and the Bandit II, The End, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and All Dogs Go to Heaven. Here's a clip of outakes with Dom from Cannonball Run. R.I.P. Dom DeLuise...

News Item: Buffalo Springfield Drummer Dies Dewey Martin, was the drummer of the group that was the forerunner of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Stills and Young went on to bigger and better things. Dewey wasn't as fortunate.

Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper perished in a plane crash on this day in 1959. The Calgary Herald's Pamela Huey revisits the events surrounding that fateful night, 50 years ago. This video is a repost, but a look behind America Pie takes a kinda cool look at the day the music died...

Regular readers know I love music, that my tastes are quite eclectic and that I'm partial to 60s and 70s music in particular. One starts to feel old when the artists he used to listen to growing up as a kid start dying off. Such is the case this morning, when I learned of several recent deaths. See for yourself in the folowing 3 posts.

Delaney and Bonnie and Friends were somewhat of a soul/rock group in the 60s and 70s. They have the distiction of being the first white group signed to Stax records. They often toured and recorded with Eric Clapton. Delaney Bramlett died last year, two days past Christmas.

The Count Five had a Psychotic Reaction in 1966 and then disappeared. John Byrne, the lead singer for these one-hit-wonders, died last year, in December.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich issued this little gem in 1967. Dave Dee passed away last month, January 9th.

"We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one." John Updike died today of lung cancer. He was 76. He left behind a significant body of work.

"I am not a number..." was the famous line that opened each installment of The Prisoner starring Patrick McGoohan , a fascinating British series that baffled and enthralled at the same time. Regular readers of this blog will know I love the series and enjoyed going through the box set last year (I spoke about it here: http://nonamedufus.blogspot.com/2008/09/not-funny-or-profoundjust-cool.html ). Sadly, McGoohan died yesterday at the age of 80. Fans everywhere will be mourning his passing and likely be intoning "be seeing you" one last time.

1923-2008 Wikipedia Bio

News Item: Polaroid Film Gone, But Not Forgotten Polaroid film is perhaps best identified through a series of commericals in the late 70s/early 80s with TV and film stars James Garner and Mariette Hartley. The chemistry between the two was superb, to such a degree many viewers thought the couple were actually married. However, they weren't. And Mariette Hartley went to great lengths to prove her point...

Yesterday, of course, was the anniversary of the assassination of John Lennon outside the Dakota Building in New York City in 1980, 28 years ago. Lennon wrote many memorable songs, both with Paul McCartney and without him. This "seasonal" tune was among the latter...

Headline Civil rights beacon Odetta dead at 77 The woman who influenced a young Bob Dylan to take up folk music has died. But her influence spread far beyond music... Wikipedia's overview can be found here.

NEW YORK (AP) — The family of Michael Crichton, the million-selling author of such historic and prehistoric science fantasies as "Jurassic Park," "Timeline" and "The Andromeda Strain," says the author has died in Los Angeles. Crichton died Tuesday at age 66. He had been privately battling cancer, his family said. "Through his books, Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand," his family said in a statement.

(from Yahoo News - 15/9/08) The news that founding Pink Floyd member Richard Wright has passed away from cancer at age 65 will no doubt bring a barrage of stories detailing the assorted onstage/offstage twists and turns of the group's long career. And make no mistake: Over the years, the group's combination of both the bizarre and the bitter when it came to their internal affairs was as much a source of fascination to their legions of fans as their often brilliant music, which have generated enough album/CD sales that if laid end to end would probably stretch from the London architecture school where they first met in the early 1960s all the way to that dark side of the moon and back again--and probably a few round trip's worth at that.Trips, of course, of both the physical and mental variety, were what Pink Floyd's earliest recordings such as "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Astronomy Domine" were all about--especially in the day-gloed days before thei...

My hero, Herb Peterson, the man who invented the Egg McMuffin, died at his Santa Barbara home on Tuesday at the age of 89. Book: Memoirs by Brian Mulroney Music: Octopus by Gentle Giant