Conference rdvax::grateful

    that is a bummer...  in a past life one of my nick-names was
    "festus"...
    
    another rilly dead person last week...  one of the members of the
    group "small faces"...  can't remember his name now though...
    
    					da ve

    ref small faces ....it was the guy who wrote "Itchycoo Park"
    
    rich

re: Small Faces

What a band!  I used to love their albums (and the weird album covers).
Ogden's Nut Gone Flake! :) and Ooo la la (maybe that was the the faces and
not small faces)

Anyhow it was Steve Marriot whom you all are thinking of...
He was in the Small Faces and later in Humble Pie.  Anyone ever hear
Pie's "ROCKIN' THE FILLMORE"????  They do a GREAT cover of "I don't need 
no doctor".

whew! smokin is right!  I think he was just recently getting back into 
music with a possible Humble Pie reunion and I'm not for certain but he
might've been working with the Black Crowes as well.

bob

                     <<< Note 156.4 by XCUSME::MACINTYRE >>>
>    You say "smokin" and believe it or not he died from a fire caused by
>    smoking a cigarette in bed.
    
I don't want anyone to think I made a pun like that intentionally!
I wouldn't joke about a thing like that.

interestingly enough they had an lp called "smokin'" too and that's 
why I signed off that way.

bob

       Mr. Johnny Thunders, guitarist for the New York Dolls till he left
    the band in '74, died last week from an apparent drug overdose at the
    age of 38. 
                                                  Irz
    

I didn't realize that Ken Curtis (Festus) was once a member of the Sons of
the Pioneers (along with Roy Rogers).  






Jim

       <<< Note 156.7 by CBROWN::HENDERSON "Seems a common way to go" >>>
>I didn't realize that Ken Curtis (Festus) was once a member of the Sons of
>the Pioneers (along with Roy Rogers).  

Yeah Jim me neither!  I read a bio/obit yesterday and they also said
something I didn't know - that he took over as singer in Tommy Dorsey 
band after Frank Sinatra moved on.  

bob

>Yeah Jim me neither!  I read a bio/obit yesterday and they also said
>something I didn't know - that he took over as singer in Tommy Dorsey 
>band after Frank Sinatra moved on.  



He was a pretty talented guy.  I know he was born in Colorado and I believed
may have lived there in the 70's.  I know he was the grand marshall or something
at the Pikes Peak or Bust rodeo one year and he was something of a local 
favorite and did a lot of charity type work.





Jim

Just a sidelight:

	Festus was the blacksmith on Gunsmoke. In Greek mythology, the god of
	the forge (ie. making things using fire) was Haephestus. The writers of
	Gunsmoke obviously had a background in mythology as well as a sense of
	humor.

John

    
    You *couldn't* have made that up ... cooool
    
    c

David Ruffin, lead singer for the Temptations, died Saturday

Of course we all know Michael Landon died yesterday...off to the Ponderosa
in the sky.



I was never all that crazy about his acting, but liked the guy









Jim

Wow, I didn't know this....

Yeah, but at least the rags will hopefully stop picking on him. As if 
being that sick wasn't bad enough. ;-(

:-Chucke

Cancer got him.  54 years old....  to young to die...

    Lee Remick (sp?) past-away yesterday also from cancer at the age of 55.

Flash! Rare Sexually-transmitted cancer which only affects Actors in their 
mid-fifties stikes down Lee Remick and Michael Landon...


Sorry, Couldn't resist.

Fog_who_missed_his_calling

Fog,

	Are you sure you don't work for the National Enquirer nights?


Kevin

    This one came out of left field:
    
    
    Bert Convy, of cancer.  Apparently, he's had a brain tumor for about a
    year.  He was 57.

Harry Reasoner, CBS newsman at 68.  He was my newsperson of choice during
the Watergate era.  

Has anyone seen the interview he did with the Dead in 67 or 68?  He did 
a news special on the "Hippie Menace" during which he visited the Dead house
and interviewed the boyz.  Pretty funny.





Jim  

RE        <<< Note 156.22 by CSLALL::HENDERSON "Financially challenged" >>>
                              -< Harry Reasoner >-

>Has anyone seen the interview he did with the Dead in 67 or 68?  He did 
>a news special on the "Hippie Menace" during which he visited the Dead house
>and interviewed the boyz.  Pretty funny.

YAH!  That is great.  The copy I saw was in black & white and was not that
great of quality... showed the early stages of the boyz... Garcia w/ no
beard, etc....  anyone have a good copy of this or know where to get one????

My brother has a copy but its probably not much better.  Its probably been
through a couple thousand generations.


Weir looked like he was in a different dimension in that one :^)

To me, Wier appeared really, really, really, super stoned-out... funny seeing
the youthful Weir!

    Paul Brown died the other day as well...a conerstone to modern
    Feetsball,....
    
    rich

    not only did Bobby seem outait..remember Phil saying "the solution is
    for everybody to turn on" or something to that effect %^)
                                                             rfb

    Not to digress or anything (but I gonna do it anayway), the wife and I
    went to the library last week because she needed to look something up. 
    So I wandered over to the music aile and found the Dead Family Album
    that came out not to long ago.  Interesting stuff.  What really kinda
    shocked me was Phil. He was really out in front in the early days,
    literally.  Like, he appeared to be "leader of the band".  I believe I
    saw one photo where Phil was out front, center stage, Bobby on one side
    behind and Jerry on the other behind.  It was a real enjoyable look
    back.
    
    dave

Babe Ruth died 43 years ago today.  He was 53.

 
Following is reprinted without permission from the San Francisco
Chronicle 8/19/91:
 
Rick Griffin - One of Top Poster Artists of Psychedelic Era
 
  Rick Griffin, whose psychedelic rock and roll posters in the 1960s
were as much a part of hippie San Francisco as incense and bell-bottom
jeans, died Saturday of severe head injuries suffered in a mortorcycle
accident. He was 47.
 
  Griffin, a prolific artist whose work included album covers, comic
strips, paintings and promotional material, clung to life for two days
at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital after he was thrown off his Harley
Davidson motorcycle while trying to pass a van in Petaluma Thursday. He
was pronounced dead at 6 p.m. Saturday.
 
  Friends and relatives of Griffin described him yesterday as a master
craftsman whose colorful, abstract style was widely copied. He is
considered to be among the five best poster artists of the 1960s
psychedelic music scene. His work promoted the concerts of such rock
titans as the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. First print
posters from the 1960s often sell for $500 to $600.
 
  "It was wonderful work," said Dennis McNally, a publicist for the
Grateful Dead, who hired Griffin to do the artwork on numerous record
albums, the latest of which was the 1990 double live album "Without a
Net." "The world doesn't have artists to waste. It hurts."
 
  Rock music promoter Bill Graham, who often hired Griffin to design
posters advertising his concerts, said Griffin truly loved his work and
never did anything he didn't beleive in.
 
  "He argued for the creative expression," Graham said. "It cost him
sometimes because he wasn't as attentive to business as he should have
been. But he was a free spirit. He liked to go into the wind."
 
  Griffin was born and raised near Palos Verdes. As a teenager he was
drawn to surfing and cartooning. He created his Murph the Surf cartoon
character for Surfer Magazine after graduating from high school.
Griffin, who lived in Petaluma, continued to surf up to the day of the
accident.
 
  In 1966, Griffin traveled to San Francisco with Jook Savages, a group
of artists and musicians who staged small concerts and art displays. He
later became an original underground cartoonist for Zap Comix and
provided artwork for the San Francisco Oracle, an underground newspaper
that published 13 editions between 1966 and 1968.
 
  He is most widely known, however, for his psychedelic posters during
San Francisco's Summer of Love era.
 
  "At one point you couldn't look anywhere without seeing them," said
Victor Moscoso, who worked with Griffin on Zap Comix. "They were like
the hula hoops of visual ats. It became the art of rock and roll."
 
  Griffin is survived by his wife Ida, son Miles, 11, and daughters
Flaven, 25, Adelia, 23 and Katey, 10.
 
  Funeral arrangements are pending.
 
 
  

    We stopped by a comics/poster store in The Cannery in San Francisco and
    they had a lot of Rick's work on display.  Many of the pieces had black
    ribbons hanging from them from a reception held there after Rick's
    wake.  The flowers were from the Dead and the owner told about showing
    Jerry around the shop while Bob hung around back drinking tequila.
    
    California's helmet law goes into effect next year.
    
    Jamie

    
    Jimi Hendrix died on this day in 1970...

    Will the wind ever remember
    the names of those it has blown in the past
    
    	Yes,. we remember... RIP Jimi
    
    							/
    

    I heard on the radio this morning that Dr. Suess died last night.
    
    John

Just heard the same thing on NPR. ;-( My love of reading can be directly traced
back to his wonderful work. My personal faves include "Horton Hears a Who"
(A person's a person no matter how small) and the "The Grinch Who Stole 
Christmas".

So long Dr. Suess and thank you for the MANY hours you allowed me to come 
play in your special worlds.

:-Chuck

    
    I almost bought a Cat In The Hat shirt last night at the show

    let's not forget "Green Eggs and Ham"!!!!  or the A,B,C book...
    
    probably my favorites were the great butter war (or something like
    that) and one of the collections that had the story about the
    Sneeches...  along with The Lorax, i think they should be required
    reading for school age humans-under-construction, but now that i think
    of it, i know a few adults who could benefit from these erudite
    works...
    
    RIP, Dr...  :^(  :^(  :^(
    
    			    da take-two-aspirin-and-call-me-in-the-morning ve

re  <<< Note 156.38 by ROULET::DWEST "Dont Overlook Something Extraordinary" >>>
                                    -< :^( >-

>    let's not forget "Green Eggs and Ham"!!!!  or the A,B,C book...
    
Or "Too Many Daves" ....

    "too many daves" is from the same collection that has the sneeches...
    i was wondering if someone was going to mention that, but it wasn't
    going to be me! :^)
    
    				da there_are_never_too_many_daves ve

I *did* buy a Cat In The Hat t-shirt, before the fellow passed away.

    
    Or have they alway been there 
    
    carol

    
    I love those hats!!  (As long as the person wearing it isn't sitting
    right in front of me of course ;-))
    
    

    Miles Davis, beautiful jazz Trumpeter. 

    
    Miles Davis. :-(
    
    RIP
    
    

I found this out at the Little Feat show last night in Boston, they dedicated 
Time Loves a Hero to him.

Another great one gone...

It was a real shock coming out of New Music Indonesia Saturday night
and turning on the car to hear the first news of Miles' death.  This
is a great loss!!  Santana asked for a moment of silence for Miles at
the Ben and Jerry's One World One Heart Festival in Golden Gate Park
on Sunday.  Santana is a big Miles fan.  RIP...8-(

peace,
t!ng

re:< Note 156.47 by SKYLRK::TING "Give Peace a Chance!!!" >

>is a great loss!!  Santana asked for a moment of silence for Miles at
>the Ben and Jerry's One World One Heart Festival in Golden Gate Park
>on Sunday.  Santana is a big Miles fan.  RIP...8-(

And on Sat. Night Live, Public Enemy had a 3-second moment of silence for him,
whom they said "without him, we wouldn't be here" or something like that.  I
didn't understand what was going on initially, then I put on CNN during a
commercial and heard the news. :-(

I bet he liked the dead.

adam

He'd been sick for a few weeks now....I wondered what was wrong with 
him.  

definately a real big loss,
bob

    He was hospitalized for a stroke, heart failure and pneumonia
    Miles was definitely a great innovator and one of the few to get the
    recognition he deserved during his lifetime.
    
    Scott
    

    re: I bet he liked the dead
    
    
    The Dead (or at least Gerry Garcia) get  a mention in his autobiography
    and he may have jammed with them if I recall. I would heartily
    recommend the autobiography as a lively read, as long as you don't mind
    phrases such as "cleaner than a motherfucker" and "take no shit from
    noone".  
    
    -Dermot

    RE: I bet he liked the dead
    
    I remember in some dead book (Playin' In the Band??) where Phil is
    talking about a show where Miles opened for them.  He said something
    to the effect that we felt real stupid playing after Miles because 
    he was so increadible that their playing seem poor compared to what 
    Miles could do.  
    
    RIP

    RIP Miles
    
    	He was an inspiration to many. His genius can not be denied.
    
    	I saw the Allman Bros, who supposedly got together after hearing
    Miles' "Kind of Blue" album (highly recommended), and they too
    dedicated a song to him.
    
    	Phil's quote was to the effect that he didn't want to play after
    Miles because they (the dead) couldn't possibly follow such musical
    genius. He felt that their music was just too simplistic,. and that
    he'd rather just go home and digets what he heard from Miles than
    play that Greateful Dead stuff...
    
    	Thankfully,.. and despite the current socail attitude towards
    drugs, Miles was recognized despite a serious additcion problem. He
    was hooked on Heroin long before drugs even became socially acceptable
    in the mid-late sixties. He spent a lot of time working to shed that
    image of blackness,.. and to his credit he did succeed.
    
    	A master on the horn, but I always admired what he could do
    with a band,.. the things he could get the musicians to do and the
    "soundscapes" he created have yet to be even copied successfully,.. and
    probably never will. I aqlways thought this talent was being overlooked
    or overshadowed by his excellent playing,.. but to me,. it was his
    musical genius as a composer/orchestrator that sticks out in my mind.
    Lots of guys can play well if you tell them what to play,.. but
    not many can do the telling...
    
    							/
    

Redd Foxx, of Sanford and Son fame, died this past weekend.  


RIP Mr. Sanford!

Wow, he just started starring in a new series too.  R.I.P.

    Wow,.. that was an unfortunate choice of wording,..
    
    Lets call it a demonic image,... for lack of a better term. (but
    anyting has got to be better than saying a black man has an image
    of blackness... :-/
    
    	 RIP Miles
    							/Bill
    

Tennessee Ernie Ford died yesterday.  Probably doesn't mean much to a lot of
folks, but I grew up hearing him sing gospel tunes on records that my grand-
mother had and seeing him on TV, etc.  My grandmother thought he was the great-
est and I can still see her sitting in a rocking chair listening to a scratchy
record of TEF singing "The Old Rugged Cross".  


:^(



Jim

                           -< Tennessee Ernie Ford >-

yeah,  too bad!  he did have a happy career....

load thirteen tons and whaddya get?
another day older and deeper in debt...

bob

    the only guy I know thats got a state, a muppet, and a car named after
    him.....
    
    Chris

    Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, died yesterday at the
    age of 69 :-(.

 Holy s*it :^(






 Jim

:-(:-(:-(,

A great mind has passed on to the great beyond. 

    From the clari-net.
    
Article: 1715
Path: nntpd.lkg.dec.com!news.crl.dec.com!deccrl!bloom-beacon!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!wupost!uunet!looking!clarinews
From: clarinews@clarinet.com (ROGER BENNETT)
Newsgroups: clari.news.movies,clari.news.urgent
Subject: 'Star Trek' creator Gene Roddenberry dies
Keywords: general broadcast news, tv & radio, movies, obituary
Message-ID: <roddenberry-obitU1OP1215ap@clarinet.com>
Date: 25 Oct 91 07:16:08 GMT
Lines: 78
Approved: clarinews@clarinet.com
Xref: nntpd.lkg.dec.com clari.news.movies:1715 clari.news.urgent:4086
Location: california
ACategory: regional
Slugword: ca-roddenberry-obit
Priority: regular
Format: regular
X-Supersedes: <roddenberry-obitU1OP1ae@clarinet.com>
ANPA: Wc: 803; Id: u0289; Sel: sca-u; Adate: 10-25-1215apd; Ver: calsked; V#: 6
Codes: yetgrca., yevgrca., yno-rca., xxxxxxxx
 
 
	SANTA MONICA, Calif. (UPI) -- Producer and writer Gene Roddenberry,
whose visionary ``Star Trek'' is one of the most popular television and
movie series of all time, died shortly after collapsing in his doctor's
office. He was 70.
	Roddenberry, who created ``Star Trek'' a quarter-century ago, died
Thursday of cardiac arrest about 20 minutes after being taken to Santa
Monica Hospital-Medical Center -- just across the street from his
doctor's office.
	Roddenberry, a decorated WWII bomber pilot and former Los Angeles
police sergeant who was born in El Paso, Texas, was writer and producer
of the ``Star Trek'' series, which ran from 1966 to 1969, but via the
rerun it is seen around the world to this day.
	The unflappable Capt. Kirk (William Shatner), the pointy-eared Vulcan
Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and the compassionate Dr. McCoy (DeForest
Kelley) created a cult, whose ``Trekkies'' convene annually to celebrate
their passion.
	``He had an extraordinary vision about mankind and the potential of
mankind's future,'' Nimoy said.
	Roddenberry also created ``Star Trek: The Next Generation,'' which
has a different cast and runs on syndicated TV. His wife, Majel Barrett,
was Nurse Chapel on ``Star Trek'' and the ``mother'' of Deanna Troi in 
``Star Trek: The Next Generation.''
	The movies and television shows were both infused with Roddenberry's
hope for the future and a sense of optimism that humans would eventually
develop the ability to get along with one another and with
extraterrestrials.
	``Few ideas in the annals of motion picture and television history
have inspired more passion and allegiance on the part of an audience as
has ''StarTrek,`` said Paramount Pictures Chairman Brandon Tartikoff. 
''Twenty-five years ago Gene Roddenberry imagined an optimistic future
for us all and his vision will live on well into that future.``
	He was also generally viewed as being far ahead of his time by
presenting both female and minority characters on the series.
	The most successful of the five movies was 1986's ``Star Trek IV: the
Voyage Home,'' in which the crew of the Starship USS Enterprise went
back in time to modern-day San Francisco in order to rescue whales. The
movie grossed more than $110 million domestically.
	Roddenberry's death comes at a time when Paramount has started
gearing up the publicity for the last movie in the series, due to be
released on Dec. 13 and called ``Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
''
	Several of the stars, including Shatner, said the movie would be the
last in the series using the original cast. The movie may also serve as
a springboard for the cast members of ``Star Trek: the Next Generation''
because it will include Michael Dorn, who plays a Klingon officer named
Worf in the TV show.
	Roddenberry's life was nearly as exciting as those of his characters.
He flew 89 missions in WWII in B-17 bombers in the South Pacific,
winning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. He began to
write while in the South Pacific, selling stories to flying magazines
and poetry to publications including the New York Times.
	When he returned from combat he became a trouble-shooter for the Air
Force, investigating the causes of air crashes. After the war he joined
Pan American World Airways. His plane crashed at night in the Syrian
desert on a flight from Calcutta and he directed a harrowing rescue that
included fending off nomads who came to loot the dead.
	Back in the states, Roddenberry continued flying until he saw
television for the first time and realized its enormous potential.
Leaving his flying career behind, he went to Hollywood, where he found
the infant industry was not hiring a lot of writers.
	A friend suggested he join the Los Angeles Police Department to see
life from a different perspective. As he was rising through the ranks to
sergeant, he was selling scripts to such programs as ``Goodyear Theatre,
'' ``the Kaiser Aluminum Hour,'' and ``Dragnet.'' With his writing
credentials established, he turned in his badge and practiced his craft
full time.
	He was head writer for ``Have Gun, Will Travel,'' and his episode 
``Helen of Abliginian'' won the Writers Guild Award. He next created 
``The Lieutenant'' TV series, the story of a young Marine.
	Next came ``Star Trek,'' whose first pilot was considered too
cerebral by the network and rejected. But once on the air, it became one
of the biggest hits of all time and is the only TV series to have an
episode preserved in the Smithsonian Institution, where an 11-foot model
of the USS Enterprise is also on display.
	Roddenberry also produced the movie ``Pretty Maids All in a Row,''
starring Rock Hudson, Angie Dickinson and Telly Savalas.
	Funeral arrangements were pending.

BUMMER!!

I hope the quality of the Star Trek writing (due mostly to Roddenberry)
continues in the future.

    I'm sure it will.  Most of the writing now is done by lots of different
    writers.  JR usually just gave the final word on the story, script,
    etc.  He was the final word on everything associated with a Trek
    episode or movie.
    
    There are thousands of ST books around which are good.  They'll never
    run out of ideas for stories because they can look at these books.  In
    fact, many of the authors of ST books do episodes also.
    
    Hey, I know, look at my node!  :^)
    
    dave

:-(

Bill Graham died last night with two others in a helicopter crash in Northern
California coming back from a Huey Lewis show 8-(.  RIP, Bill!!  Thanks for
all the good times!!

peace,
t!ng

    This hasn't been a good weekend for people who have influenced my life.
    First Gene Roddenberry, and now Bill Graham.  I just found out,
    flipping channels, and happened to come upon a news program talking
    about him (on KTVU, a local independent station).  They had some clips of
    people he worked with, including some comments by Janis Joplin, and
    other comments by those who he worked with for some charity work.
    
    One thing I noticed about Bill... though I never met him, I saw him in
    the audience a few times, both at Oakland Coliseum and at Shoreline...
    He always seemed to be enjoying the show he was at.  Everytime I saw
    him at a show, he had a smile on his face, like he was enjoying
    whatever was going on, rather it was a volleyball game at the NYE run,
    or just wandering through the scene.
    
    Apparently, the show Sunday night is to be deadicated to him.
    Bill, you will be missed...You helped bring much of the music I enjoy
    to a wider audience.  (RIP, 1931-1991)

    such sad news , when I read the Sunday paper and saw the orbit it kinda
    left me numb. He was taken before his time.......
    
    Chris

Heard about while in a moderately altered state...hard to believe.  He was one
of those people I figured would be around forever.  I got to thinking last night
about all the music to which I was introduced thanks to him...the list is
practically endless.



Jim

	:^(  I heard this from Dave and chose not to believe it,
	but now I know it's true.  Good bye Bill, rest well and
	thanks for everything!

    I heard this late Saturday night..kinda put a damper on the rest
    of the evening...tis sad...take care Uncle Bobo....
    you will be remembered and missed..
    
    rich

    
    The music biz won't be the same without him. Ther are so many
    musicians who have been helped by him,.. pulled out of the
    gutter,.. promoted, produced,.. all great acts that I love.
    He had the brains to help out the "brainless" artists who were
    wasting their lives away and bring them back to the limelight.
    His influence was all pervasive throughout much of the music
    that I have loved over the years. I'm still cryin'
    
    Bill,. we love you,.. and we will miss you. Thanks for all
    the hard work over the years and for some of the sweetest
    memories of my life.
    
    							/Bill
    

    ya, really strange about Bill Grahm....I was told while on a road trip
    this weekend sorta like "OH! I forgot to tell ya!!!" type thing..
    left me kinda numb too. I agree with whoever said he was 
    almost always enjoyin the show.
    I remember him at Telluride..a HUGE grin on his face, he was standing
    right next to me talking to some locals. And his plea to be careful
    and kind to our bodies in Vegas...those words will always send chills
    up and down my spine when I listen to that tape.
    
    RIP...we will keep da faith
                               rfb

I dunno, but there always seemed to be _something_ different about a BGP event;
a kinda _electricity_ that other shows can attain, but just not to the same
degree fer some reason. Just one of lifes lil' inexplicables, I s'pose.

	My first concert was a BGP, and he was quite a visable feature: he was
the guy standing behind the "lemonade" stand just inside the lobby.  :-)

Who will now descend upon the NYE Stage from on grateful high????

Fog

    One of the biggest differences in being 30 (as opposed to 20) is that
    many more people who have directly or indirectly influenced my life are
    dead.
    
    I don't know exactly what to call the emotion that this realization
    causes, but it hurts, especially knowing that in the years to come
    it's going to get worse.
    
    John

    re: -.1
    
    I hear ya John. I keep grasping at the thought of immortality (not just
    for myself) and it keeps slipping
    

>    One of the biggest differences in being 30 (as opposed to 20) is that
>    many more people who have directly or indirectly influenced my life are
>    dead.

Yes.  This is true and it sometimes causes a hollow feeling inside.

However, I find that one of the biggest differences in being 40 <GAWD!> (as
opposed to 20 or 30), is that I've allowed so many *more* people influence
and contribute to my life.  Something about getting older seems to help me
create more space for people to contribute to me.

	~dave

    re:.78 and .80
    that's life.........
                        rfb

    re .80
    
    	Hey Probs
    
    		Thats great! You have a good formula working there.
    	Keep with it man...
    
    								/
    

re: rfb

you crack me up.... i can just see you when you're 50 ... you'll probably
still act like you're 21 !!!!!  ain't nothin' wrong with that in my book...

hope you don't take offense to this as I mean it in a good sort of way....

;-)

    Publisher Robert Maxwell yesterday
    
    and
    
    The inventor of flubber, father of the shaggy dog and the coolest guy
    ever to sport a pair of wing tips, Fred MacMurray, at age 83

>    The inventor of flubber, father of the shaggy dog and the coolest guy
>    ever to sport a pair of wing tips, Fred MacMurray, at age 83

Yeah Jeff that made me smile!  And don't forget "America's favorite Dad!".

re:: Maxwell
Someone sold 2 million dollars worth of Maxwell's stock around the time
he was killed....Scotland Yard is investigating....

bob

    I couldn't believe that "My Three Son's" ran from 1960 to 1973!!  I
    believe that's the longest running sitcom to date?  
    
    Saw this stuff on Good Morning America the other day.
    
    dave

>   <<< Note 156.86 by SPOCK::IRONS "Setting the Standard for Deadcellence" >>>
>
>    I couldn't believe that "My Three Son's" ran from 1960 to 1973!!  I
>    believe that's the longest running sitcom to date?  
>    
>    Saw this stuff on Good Morning America the other day.
>    
>    dave


I thought M*A*S*H* was the longest running sitcom. I don't have th dates 
though

Geoff

    I think mash was 11 yrs

     On CNN, they said "My Three Sons" was the 2nd longest running sitcom
    ever..."Ozzie and Harriet" was the first......
    
               

    Well...he ain't dead...yet...but I heard that Frank Zappa is seriously
    ill with prostate cancer.
    
    Another hero...
    
    	:-(
    

            <<< Note 156.90 by NECSC::LEVY "Thanks, Uncle Bobo!" >>>
>    Well...he ain't dead...yet...but I heard that Frank Zappa is seriously
>    ill with prostate cancer.

I heard this too last night as they played lots of ZAPPA.  Isn't
this the same type of cancer that Michael Landon died from?
    
:( is right.....
bob

I think Michael Landon had pancreatic cancer.  







Jim

    
    I heard it on the radio too. :-(  He was supposed to play 4 nights in
    the NYC area starting last night but cancelled out at the last minute
    because he was too sick. 
    
    :-(
    

	Man, first Majic and now Zappa ?  On successive days ?  Geez!

	Majic ought to be OK for a while I guess but this is really
	bad news for Frank. 

	:'-(

	Ken

	I always suspected Prostate Cancer would be FZ's downfall, after all, 
	wasn't it he wrote that smash hit "Why does it hurt when I pee"?

Fog	

    
    Jumping the gun a little here aren't we? Isn't this the "dead people"
    note? Or is it now the "Soon to be..." note?
    
    ...Robert
    

A minor digression, Rob.

    Just to keep the list of not dead yet people:
    Freddie Mercury (from Queen) has been diagnosed with AIDS.
    
    Mort Shuman (former songwriting partner with Doc Pomus, who died
    earlier this year) is really dead.
    
    And after 16 valiant years of struggle, Generalissimo Francisco Franco
    is still dead.
    

    	Freddie Mercury has died over the weekend due to AIDS.......
    
    		momma just killed a man, put a gun to his head pulled the
    trigger now he's dead......oh momma life has just begun.........
    
    
    Chris

 Saw in another notesfile that Adm Grace Hopper died recently (yesterday?).

 She was 85.






Jim

Dee Murray, Elton John's bassist, and also in Uriah Heep, died today of skin
cancer (melanoma).

RIP

Willie Dixon!  So long Mr. BLUES.

He was *the* little red rooster!

I think he was 76 and died early yesterday morning.

What follows is an obit for Dixon:

          <<< AKOFIN::DISK$FA0087:[NOTES$LIBRARY]AFTER_HOURS.NOTE;1 >>>
                     -< After_Hours Blues/R&B Conference >-
================================================================================
Note 18.14                        Willie Dixon                          14 of 17
DPE::STARR "They call it Paradise, I don't know wh" 125 lines  29-JAN-1992 17:44
                                  -< R.I.P. >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article 1455 of clari.news.music:
Subject: Blues legend Willie Dixon dead at 76
Date: 29 Jan 92 18:33:37 GMT

	BURBANK, Calif. (UPI) -- Blues legend Willie Dixon, whose music
epitomized the blues and shaped rock 'n' roll, died Wednesday from
apparent heart failure. He was 76.
	A spokeswoman for St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank said that
Dixon was admitted to the hospital Jan. 5 complaining of chest pains. He
died about 1:30 a.m.
	``Based on his condition, his physician speculates that he died of
heart failure,'' spokeswoman Patty Starkey said.
	As an key member of the Chicago blues scene, Dixon sang and played
stand-up bass but his legacy will be the hundreds of songs he wrote for
others. They are among the most enduring in the blues genre, filled with
grit and an evocative quality that was not lost on the young Mick
Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and other young rockers
in the early 1960s.
	Dixon's helped shape the careers of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf,
two other Mississippi transplants, when all three were part of Chicago's
legendary Chess record label in the 1950s.
	``Frankly, the blues is the facts of life and it's very easy to write
the blues when you're thinking about life,'' Dixon said in a 1989
television interview.
	Dixon was an adequate singer but Howlin' Wolf and Waters gave his
classic works an eroticism and urgency that he could not.
	The crusty Wolf, born Chester Burnett, had hits with Dixon's ``Little
Red Rooster,'' ``I Ain't Superstitious,'' ``Back Door Man,'' ``Evil''
and ``Spoonful,'' filling them with a tinge of danger and brooding
sensuality. For Waters, whose style was not so menacing, Dixon wrote ``I
Just Want to Make Love to You,'' ``Hoochie Coochie Man'' and ``You Need
Love.''
	Dixon had to be diplomatic when pitching a song to the rivals Wolf
and Waters, who both feared he was giving his best work to the other.
	``When I first started giving them songs, nobody ever wanted the song
you gave them,'' Dixon said in a 1989 Rolling Stone interview. ``So I
had to use a little psychology on them. Since Wolf and Muddy both seemed
to think that I was giving them the wrong song, all I'd have to do is go
to Wolf and say, 'Hey, man, now here's a song I made for Muddy. Muddy's
going to do this.'''
	Bruce Iglauer, president and founder of blues-oriented Alligator
Records, knew Dixon for many years.
	``Willie's main contribution to blues was not as a performer but as a
writer, talent scout and creator of sounds,'' he said. ``Willie in many
respects defined what is called Chicago Blues in the late 1940s through
the end of the 1960s as a producer, as a writer, as an arranger. He
really had a musical vision.
	``He had a sense of writing the perfect song for the artist.''
	``He was probably the greatest blues writer that ever lived -- that
was his business,'' said Scott A. Cameron, who served as Dixon's manager
for nearly 20 years until Dixon severed the professional relationship
two months ago.
	Dixon, one of 14 children, was born July 1, 1915, in Vicksburg, Miss.
He was fairly well educated and picked up his love of lyrics from his
mother, who read him poetry and encouraged him to write his own.
	He sang in gospel groups but also had trouble with the law that
landed him in prison farms before he migrated to New York and then to
Chicago. His refusal to go into the Army in 1941 resulted in more jail
time.
	Dixon was a heavyweight boxer long enough to win an Illinois Golden
Gloves title in 1937 but an arguement with a manager over money ended
his ring career. He turn to music and eventually met Phil and Leonard
Chess.
	When the Chess brothers formed their record company, Dixon became an
important -- although not well paid -- part of it. He composed, sang,
played at recording sessions and worked as a producer, arranger and
talent scout.
	Like many blues men of his generation, Dixon had to go to Europe to
broaden his audience. A 1960 tour of the continent eventually would
bring him a roundabout recognition from white Americans.
	Fledgling musicians flocked to Dixon's shows in England and found the
essence of rock 'n' roll in his songs. Members of the Rolling Stones,
the Yardbirds, Cream, the Jeff Beck Group, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
and Led Zeppelin all were taken by Dixon's work and recorded his songs.
White American teengers then snatched up the British rock records, thus
getting their first, indirect exposure to American blues.
	Dixon, who would later have legal battles with some of his disciples
over royalties, often found himself hosting young Britons who made
pilgrimages to his Chicago home.
	``They'd come to my house and I'd carry them to different places to
entertain them,'' Dixon told Rolling Stone. ``When they got to be
popular, like the Stones, there were so many other people following them
around until I couldn't let them all in my house because they couldn't
get in the doorway.''
	In later years, acts as diverse as the heavy metal band Metallica,
Hank Williams Jr., Los Lobos and New Wavers Oingo Boingo would record
Dixon songs.
	``When a youngster today goes to tracing the history of American
music, he's going to find the blues is the roots of it all,'' Dixon told
The Washington Post in 1989. ``That's why it's important for people to
understand the blues is an important part of our history and our
culture.''
	In another interview that year, Dixon had said, ``The wisdom of the
blues is the true facts of life, expressed in words, songs, inspiration,
feeling and understanding. And when people have that, you can say you
have some experience with the blues.''
	Dixon often had to go to great lengths to protect his copyrights and
had to contest the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin for royalties to
their versions of his songs. To help other blues men and their heirs in
similar battles, he became head of the Blues Heaven Foundation (822
Hillgrove Ave., Western Springs, Ill., 60558) in 1982. The foundation
also established a scholarship fund in Waters's name for Chicago-area
students and provided musical instruments to schools in the name of
blues greats.
	Dixon had a revival in the late 1980s. He won a Grammy in 1989 for
his first album in many years, ``Hidden Charms,'' and his autobiography,
``I Am the Blues,'' was published in 1989.
	In 1989 Chess released a boxed set containing 36 of his songs as
performed by himself, Waters, Wolf, Koko Taylor, Willie Mabon, Little
Walter and others.
	Dixon was one of the main attractions at a Jan. 21, 1989, rhythm and
blues concert put on as part of George Bush's inauguration and he showed
up wearing a ``Jesse Jackson for President'' button.
	Dixon, who lost his right foot in 1977 because of complications of
diabetes, was a bulky man and celebrated his girth in the songs ``Built
for Comfort'' and ``300 Pounds of Joy.''
	Cameron said Dixon also suffered from heart disease for some 20 years
and suffered a mild heart attack in the 1980s. Even so, Cameron said
that up until recently, Dixon's health was ``quite robust.''
	He moved from Chicago to Glendale, Calif., in 1984 with his wife,
Marie. They had five children, including a 21-year-old son who drowned
in April 1988. Memorial services were tentatively planned in Los Angeles
followed by a funeral in Chicago.

    Jose Ferrer died yesterday too.  He was 80.
    He played some cool bad guys, not as evil as Max von Sydow but he ws
    pretty good.
    
    Scott
    

Heard somebody here say that Dick York who played Darren (in the early days)
on Bewitched died yesterday.  I know he's been quite ill, but can't recall
with what.




Jum

    dick york or dick sargent??? sargent came out of the closet on public
    TV sometime ago, so....
                           rfb

RE:                     <<< Note 156.106 by CLOSUS::BARNES >>>

   > dick york or dick sargent??? sargent came out of the closet on public
   > TV sometime ago, so....
    



      Dick York.  Sargent did come out of the closet, and is alive.





 Jum

Isaac Asimov - RIP.  Dead at 72 from heart and kidney failure.

Currently reading the last "Foundation and Earth" which he wrote (can't 
quite seem to find the time to finish it...).

    wow! Asimov filled many of my teenaage reading hours with grate
    fantasy....
               rfb

    Sam Walmart or Wal-Mart and Sam's Club passed away over the Wekkend
    and on a personal note Richard X. Gannon former owner of Gannon Motors
    Westboro died Saturday, a very good friend of my family....

    RIP - 4/4/92, Phillip C. McKernan, 72. (Pigpen's dad).

 Well, lessee...Robert Reed (dad on the Brady Bunch) died last night of 
 colon cancer at 59..


 Carlos Herrera credited with creating the margerita died yesterday


 And the lady who created Spic n' Span





 Flags are at half staff in Margaritaville today

 Well, Lawrence Welk, the king of champaigne music has gone to the bandbox
in the sky.  I was never all that crazy about him, but a lot of childhood
memories of watching him on TV (yes Lisa, they had TV when I was a kid :-) )
with my parents and grandparents came back after hearing the news..



Jum

TV *and* Lawrence Welk?  Weren't you the lucky child?  :-)

Actually, I have lots of memories of watching LW too, not totally by choice.
But I admit to being impressed by the real life soap opera and family gossip
of the Welk family that my aunt knew all about!  

    
    I also rememeber watching Lawrence Welk show as a teenager - yes I was a
    teenager once.  I remember thinking even then that there had to be
    something better then this gossamer swing and the hillbilly stuff on
    the AM radio my folks had on in the kitchen at all hours of the day and
    night... I grew up in VT ..  and then I found that if I stayed up rilly
    rilly late at nite i could hear Peter Tripp the curly_headed kid in the
    3rd Row from some station in NYC.   heady stuff.
    
    c

RE:     <<< Note 156.115 by SELL1::ROBERTS "a blinding flash o'the obvious" >>>
                                -< music roots >-

    
   >    rilly late at nite i could hear Peter Tripp the curly_headed kid in the
   > 3rd Row from some station in NYC.   heady stuff.
    
   
  Boing!  I used to listen to a guy with the same name on a station in SF! He
  used to be on KYA which called itself America's #1 music station!




 Jum

    
    cool!!! Maybe Peter Tripp was syndicated??? wow!  I never knew ANYONE 
    else who had heard of him.
    
    

 I don't think he was syndicated...as I recall he was on in the early or mid
60's and disappeared in the late 60's.  I think he was on in the afternoons.
Also on the station at the time were (Big Daddy) Tom Donahue and Bobby Mitchell,
who were instrumental (so to speak) in the early stages of the 60's music scene
in SF..Donahue eventually left KYA and started one of the first "underground"
FM stations (KMPX) and ultimately moved over to KSAN..both are dead so I guess
this is really not a digression :-)




Jum

    well *I* heard him around '57 +  or so - having been a teenager before you
    (!)  My impression was that he was coming out of NYC and it was
    definitely at nite.  I know this because that was the only time VT'rs
    could pick up such a station.  amazing connections
    

 Ummm..could you perhaps be cornfusing Lawrence Welk with Ed Sullivan?


 I do recall seeing a guy on LW that played a honky tonk piano..the guys name
was Big Tiny Little Junior, and that ol guy could bang them 88s.  My dad was
a piano freak and he loved to see that guy.





Jum

What ever became of the Lennon Sisters, anyways?

    I thought LW died several years ago.
    My mother used to watch his show.  I thought he was squarer than
    square.  I remember a few things from the show - the Lemmon Sisters,
    Bobby the dancer who was a mouseketeer, the Geritol and denture ads.
    
    Maybe when we're in our golden years Bob Weir will host a show
    featuring our favorite rock stars of our younger years.  Imagine an 85
    year old Mick Jagger trying to get through "Satisfaction".
    
    Scott
    

    Hell yeah I am Jum,.
    
    I'm going to delete that reply..
    
    						/BILL
    

RE:                      <<< Note 156.122 by DEDSHO::CLARK >>>

>What ever became of the Lennon Sisters, anyways?



 I think they wrote a book about the horrors of working for LW and how much they
all hated singing those stupid songs all the while smiling like there's no
tomorrow..soon to be a made for TV movie (loosely based on the book) where
in order to deal with their dissatisfaction with LW they actually became the
Four Seasons and secretly hated each other..




Jum

RE:          <<< Note 156.123 by TLE::ABBOT "J. R. "Bob" Dobbs in 92" >>>

   >    Bobby the dancer who was a mouseketeer, the Geritol and denture ads.
    
    
        And the laxitive called Serutan (which backwards spells Natures)



    
  Jum    

>in order to deal with their dissatisfaction with LW they actually became the
>Four Seasons and secretly hated each other..
    
    ...not to mention the quadruple sex change operation in the
    mid-sixties....;-)
    
    tim
    

speaking of sex and dead people you just reminded me of something I heard on
BCN (I think) last week...  It's really terrible, no disrespect meant to Mr.
Brady but I heard that offset of the Brady Bunch filmings were constant orgies
between the cast members.  They even had a song about it (sung to the Brady
Bunch theme of course).  Wish I could remember some of it, it was hysterical.
So much so that I was stuck at an intersection laughing.  Did anyone else hear
it? 

    There you go,,. shattering the last of my childhood mtyths
    
    Thanks a lot Lisa!
    
    						/Was_a_Brady_fan_once_upon
    						_a_time
    
    PS
    
    	Oh ,. hey Lisa,.. can't forget this now can I?
    
    
    	:-) :-) ;-)
    

Yup, Lisa, it was BCN.

I heard it, too.  On my way to the Sox game.  Pretty funny stuff (if you're into
sophmoric-type of humor -- which I can be...) :-).

Dave

re Lisa

The guy who played Greg in the Brady Bunch mentioned in a book he wrote recently,
about the show, that he used to lust after Florence Henderson during the
series.  I think he said something like "from the beginning, my interest in
Florence was more carnal than maternal."

Rilly.

-dc

    re: daddy Brady
    
    Talk about destroying images!  On the radio this morning I heard that,
    though Robert Reed died of Colon Cancer, he was also HIV positive, and
    that the cancer was (or was likely?) a complication of AIDS.

    Well, he won an emmy for portraying a doctor who had a sex change
    operation in an episode of Medical Center (or one of those medical
    dramas) in the 70's.  Course it doesn't mean anything other than he did
    a good job in the role.  BTW, anyone can be exposed to AIDS regardless
    of their sexual preference, so we shouldn't assume things.
    
    AIDS does make one more likely to get cancer - as with Freddie Mercury.
    
    Did Greg really have an affair with mom Brady right from the beginning?
    He couldn't have been much more than 12 when the series started.
    
    Scott
    

>    Did Greg really have an affair with mom Brady right from the beginning?
>    He couldn't have been much more than 12 when the series started.

Just in his mind, I think.

    	I read PEOPLE magazine last night and if they didn't say he
    died of a AIDS related problem then I'd say thats just a BUNCH of BS !
    the cancer was found last Thanksgiving, and it took him fast.....and
    thats it.
    
    sad all the same...
    
    Chris

Wait a second.  You can get AIDS from performing a sex change operation on TV??

    >Wait a second.  You can get AIDS from performing a sex change
    yeah - nothing is safe anymore.
    
    BTW - I also heard that Greg and Mrs. B. were a hot item.
    
    

    
    Greg and Mrs B did date for a time...  both have fessed up in
    interviews...  
    
    					da ve

    I feel so well informed now
    
    Thanks everyone
    
    								/
    

    Next they'll say that Peter had a fling with Alice.
    
    Cancer can take someone pretty quick - last year Michael Landon found
    out he had cancer around April, and by June or July he was dead.  Not
    much time to do everything you want to do.
    
    Scott
    

    
    I know someone who was diagnosed with cancer and died 3 weeks later. It
    can be very quick, depending on what it hits.  In his case it was his
    liver.
    
    

Cancer is often not diagnosed until it has done most of its dirty work. 8^(

    Death don't have no mercy...

    
    
    Tom Dobbs - Sound Engineer for Taft Sound (worked with Slipknot).
    
    6/3/92
    
    Rest in Peace my friend, I'll never forget the compliments you have
    given, the smiles you have shared, the kindness in your heart, and the
    happiness in your life...  These tears are hold to hold back.

> These tears are hold to hold back.

So don't... :-|

Hang in there, Treemon...

Dave

    Simon Szeto, one of the most prolific noters in DEC, and a true
    gentlemen, died of heart failure, while out riding his bicycle, on
    Saturday. 
    
    See the Digital Conference, note 1941. for more details, and
    eulogies...
    
    q
    

    Holy mackerel!  I met Simon at DECUS last fall after seeing his notes
    (and benefiting from much of his expertise) for quite a while.
    
    Shocked!
    
    	~dave
    

    Cross posted:
            <<< HUMANE::HUMANE$DUA1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DIGITAL.NOTE;1 >>>
                          -< The DEC way of working >-
================================================================================
Note 1941.7                   Simon Szeto passes on                      7 of 73
CVG::THOMPSON "Radical Centralist"                   53 lines  14-JUN-1992 23:18
          -< Simon Szeto - who he was for those who didn't know him >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Simon Szeto was a software engineering manager. At least that is what
    DEC paid him for. He was also a very special person. When he left the
    RSTS group to work on the PRO many years a go a trade rag, the RSTS
    Professional, called him the conscience of RSTS engineering. He was
    always vitally concerned about customers. Actually he was vitally
    concerned about people period.

    Noters owe him some great debts. Even if he did create SOAPBOX. Simon
    was a manager in the old PRO-350 group. On his watch was created
    DITTYBAG, now CTNOTES, which was of the early product support
    conferences. But it was more then a dry report the problem/reply
    conference. It had a real personality. This was in the old KNOTES
    days. Later as Mark Goodrich  developed Notes-11 Simon was the
    unofficial product manager for this non-product. He provided lots
    of encouragement to those of us who created add-ons to notes. The first
    documentation for Notes, The Notes-11 Users Guide, came about because
    Simon encouraged and supported me in the effort.

    Simon started EASYNOTES.LIS, the definitive list of announced
    conferences on the net. I took it over a year or so later (and have
    since handed it over to another), but always regarded it as "Simon's
    List." 

    Once upon a time the sort of center of the Enet (now EASYNET) was a
    conference for discussion of network management issues. Someone started
    a flame there about smoking at work. When criticized  for posting it
    there the reply was that there was nowhere else to put it. Simon
    created the first SOAPBOX in his own directory to draw the fire away.
    This became the first really significant employee interest notes file.

    Simon also worked behind the scenes educating people about Notes
    issues. It's not well known but Notes-11 supported moderators of a
    sort. Simon was one of the first. Many of us learned to moderate by
    following Simon's lead. I know I'm not alone in that I often went to
    Simon for advice. About Notes of course  but also about work and life
    in general. Sometimes he came to me with it. but such was Simon's 
    nature and the nature of his advice that this was always welcome.

    I've known Simon since the DITTYBAG days. We met in person for the
    first time when he was visiting the RSTS group, where we both worked
    at different times, to see who this weird guy was that was in the
    middle of a major notes fight in DITTYBAG. We met face to face many
    times after that. I'm fortunate to have known him. He was truly a
    special person.

    Simon leaves behind a wife and two sons. Also a great many friends,
    including myself, who will miss him greatly. Those of us who knew him
    are fortunate for that. As a believer, as Simon was, I hold on to the
    knowledge that we will meet again in paradise. But I'll miss him until
    then.

    			Alfred

    

    
    :-(
    
    

    Geoff, not that I don't beleive your note but I have not heard anything
    on the radio or even in Heavy Metal notes about Page's
    death.....wouldn't a station like BCN be playing Led Zep like crazy
    right about now ?
    
    I hope its not true
    
    Chris

    gulp
    
    :-(
    
    I thought he had kicked the habit,... Hope its not true...
    
    							/Soko
    

><<< Note 156.151 by SLOHAN::FIELDS "Its sad,so sad 'cus the Circus Left Town" >>>
>                                     -< ? >-
>
>    Geoff, not that I don't beleive your note but I have not heard anything
>    on the radio or even in Heavy Metal notes about Page's
>    death.....wouldn't a station like BCN be playing Led Zep like crazy
>    right about now ?
>    
>    I hope its not true
>    
>    Chris



I haven't heard it anywhere else either. I can't vouch for the reliability but 
thought I would pass on the message

Geoff

    
    I tried to email the author but it bounced back as unknown addressee.
    
    

    Well its hit H_M as a rumor but still confirmation...so I'd put it down
    as just a rumor.....i hope
    
    Chris

	Wow.  I was seriously into Led Zeppelin, and in particular the
	guitar work of Jimmy Page, for years.  I hope it's not true.

	Wierd, listening to Death Dont' Have No Mercy the other day
	I thought what a great job Led Zeppelin could have done with it.
	Never made that association before.  I could hear Jimmy's searing
	treatment of the lead portions, and Plant doing justice to lyrics.  
	
	Can you hear it ?

	Ken

    One thing that caught my eye when I read it this morning was the 
    time stamp, which was Thursday evening GMT, which is Thursday 
    afternoon our time. (EDT here :-)  And it happened last night 
    according to the poster, which would have been Wednesday or early
    morning Thursday.  Certainly enough time to hit the Friday obits,
    which reported Peter Allen's death (of AIDS related illness), but
    nada about Page.  I'm hoping it's a rumor of the Mark Twain 
    variety.  Not that I'm a big Zep fan, but Page is still great (present
    tense intended ;-)  Peter Allen I didn't really care for, but I'm 
    not pleased to see him go.  R.I.P.  :-(
    
    PeterT
    

I'm crusing through some unread notes from the last two weeks and come upon 
this.  My reaction was *GASP*!!  I assume this rumor was never substaitated 
since I have not heard anything about this anywhere else??

Scott_a_Zep_head_long_before_a_Ded_head

    William Gaines, publisher of Mad Magazine since #1,
    died on or about June 3, 1992.
    
    Alfred E Neuman was quoted, "What me worry?"
    
    /bruce

    re .158 et al
    
    Apparently this rumour started as a practical joke that spread into the
    alt.* newsgroups.
    
    gary

.149 is set hidden.

Geoff K, o.k. to delete it?

Lemme know.

>      <<< Note 156.163 by CSCMA::M_PECKAR "spinning that curious sense" >>>
>
>
>.149 is set hidden.
>
>Geoff K, o.k. to delete it?
>
>Lemme know.


All taken care of

Geoff

 Mary Wells who had a string of hits on the Motown label in the 60's died 
yesterday of cancer at 49.  

    heard on the radio today...
    the drummer for Toto died of a heartattack today due to an alergic
reaction to the pesticides he was spraying in his backyard!!
    
    strange but true....

    Was that one of the (Italian-sounding name) brothers?  Famous session
    guy.
    
    Scott
    

    yes Scott, can't remember the name, but your description 
    matches the radio's.
    Actually I think all of Toto started as studio musicians. 
                     rfb

Jeff Porcaro???   WOW, what a loss for the music community! :-(

He played with Steely Dan, too.

adam

    John Cage  died yesterday at 79  in NYC 
    
    

    RE: 101
    
    This is kind of late, but I just found this notesfile.
    
    I met Dee Murray at a party in Tennessee back when I was in high
    school. I went with my friend Michelle and her Dad who is a
    songwriter("Dreams of the everyday housewife")-Chris Gantry.
    Also met Crystal Gayle at that party.
    
    Dee, his girlfriend and their little girl were so nice-real people.
    
    
    wow.

Just read that Anthony Perkins died over the weekend. 8^(

Scott

Eddie Kendricks - one of the founders of that most awesome R&B band
The Temptations (My Girl, Ain't Too Proud to Beg, Psychedelic Shack,
Papa was a Rolling Stone, Keep on Truckin' and on and on and on).
Not sure why he's gone but I think about a year or so ago he had a
lung removed (cancer).  

And Steve Scruggs is gone by his own hand (2 or 3 weeks ago).  He killed 
his wife then himself.  Can things have been that bad?  I saw the Earl 
Scruggs Revue 3 times and what a wicked good time Earl, Steve and Randy 
plus a couple of token non family members could put on!  

WOW!

>Eddie Kendricks - one of the founders of that most awesome R&B band
>The Temptations (My Girl, Ain't Too Proud to Beg, Psychedelic Shack,
>Papa was a Rolling Stone, Keep on Truckin' and on and on and on).
>Not sure why he's gone but I think about a year or so ago he had a
>lung removed (cancer).  

Yeah, the news this morning said "advanced lung cancer."  I think they said he 
was 52.

Scott

    Red Barber at age 84.
    
    Red was a pioneering radio and television sports announcer.  He started
    in the 1920's.  Among many other notable accomplishments, Red was the
    announcer for the first nighttime baseball game, the first televised
    baseball game, and the first televised football game.  Red's 
    announcing and his way with the English language was nothing short
    of amazing.  Red's voice is the one you hear calling many famous 
    sports events between the 20's and the 60's.  In the late 70's, Red
    was elected to the baseball hall of fame.
    
    For the past 11 years, Bob Edwards, the host of NPR's Morning Edition,
    has broadcast a weekly Friday morning conversation with Red as a 
    regular Morning Edition feature.  I, and many others, will very 
    much miss this part of our Friday mornings.
    
    If there's a great baseball game up there in the sky, Red is announcing
    it.
    
    tms_crying

 I enjoyed his commentary on NPR also...




 Also dead today..



 Jim Garrison..who's book inspired the movie JFK 

 Cleavon Little who among other things played the sheriff in Blazing Saddles
 and also played in one of the better TV series from the early 70's "Temper-
 atures rising...




 Jum

                                -< Red Barber >-

Yah,  Red's gone.  I remember a couple of weeks ago they said on NPR that
Red was sick and wouldn't be on today....never to return.

In addition to what tms just wrote:
He broadcast for the Brooklyn Dodgers, NY Yankees and Cincinnati Reds...

bob

    
    geee...  no mention of Shirley Booth's passing this week...  alas,
    now the Baxter's will have to clean up thier own damn messes...
    Hazel has gone for good....  :^(
    
    					da ve

Yeah, plus the actor who played the butler in the movie "Trading Places"
(starring Eddie Murphy, I definitely recommend it) ... I forget his
name.

- Dave

re: Cleavon Little

I wonder how he died?  He seemed pretty young. :-(

re: Temperatures Rising.

This show is actually in syndication, on WOR Channel 9 from NYC.  I happened to
flip this on last week, and I did not recognize it.  I could tell it was made
in the 70's just by looking.  I checked the name in the TV guide, and I have to
admit I never heard of this show.  I'll have to check a few episodes out.  I
don't remember when it's on, though.

adam

 Cleavon Little died from Colon cancer at 53...



 Re Temperatures rising...there were 2 versions of the show..one with 
James Whitmore who was like the chief doctor and then Paul lynde later replace
Whitmore (I think that's what happened)..anyhow there were 2 versions of the
show, but the first was the best IMO..kinda went down hill after a while..




Jum

Roger Miller, *THE* King of the Road died this past weekend (cancer).

I know he did a bunch I used to listen to as a kid and he penned a lot
more tunes for other folks as well.....

bob

From:	ZENDIA::US1RMC::"bsalkewi@wellfleet.com" "Bill Salkewicz" 29-OCT-1992 10:30:38.07
To:	zendia::ferguson
CC:	
Subj:	a personal message of thanks

	Hi JC,..

		Would you mind posting this for me in grateful...


	... been here so long he's got to calling it home ...

	The man who TURNED ME ON (!) to the Grateful Dead,.. among other
	things,.. passed away last night. You may remember my mentioning
	in notes a few months back that I knew someone who had been diagnosed
	with lymphoma (sp?) (now he's dead and I still don't even know how to 
	spell what the hell it was that killed him :-/),.. 

	This note is just to say thanks,...

	Thanks for the support and comfort you have given me
	Thanks for being there when I needed to talk
	Thanks for being who you are DECheads
	Thanks for making me understand what friendship really is

	I don't know if I'll be seeing any of you on Holloween, but
	its going to be a very interesting celebration of All Souls
	Day for this boy. I hope I can get up and play my best for you.

							/Soko




% ====== Internet headers and postmarks (see DECWRL::GATEWAY.DOC) ======
% Received: by us1rmc.bb.dec.com; id AA08121; Thu, 29 Oct 92 10:28:02 -0500
% Received: by enet-gw.pa.dec.com; id AA21001; Thu, 29 Oct 92 07:30:20 -0800
% Received: from striper.wellfleet ([192.32.1.208]) by lobster.wellfleet.com (4.1/SMI-4.1)id AA00597; Thu, 29 Oct 92 10:25:50 EST
% Received: by striper.wellfleet (4.1/SMI-4.1)id AA00356; Thu, 29 Oct 92 10:07:31 EST
% Date: Thu, 29 Oct 92 10:07:31 EST
% From: bsalkewi@wellfleet.com (Bill Salkewicz)
% Message-Id: <9210291507.AA00356@striper.wellfleet>
% To: zendia::ferguson
% Subject: a personal message of thanks

    Chuck Connors......"Lucas McCain of the Rifleman tv show".....died from 
    lung cancer yesterday he was 71.....my childhood hero

    former Celtic?  i thought he was a baseball player before going into
    tv...

    
       re last two: he played with the celtics AND two baseball teams
     (not sure what teams though, it was a trivia ques. on the airwaves
     this morn.)
                                                         ^dave

 He played for the celtics in the 40's I believe and also played baseball
 for the Dodgers...not sure who the other baseball team was..but, hold on a 
 minute and I'll check my paper...Ok I'm back...he played for the Dodgers in 
 49 and 50 and the Chicago Cubs in 1951.





Jum

    
    Chuck played for the Celtics during the '46 (or was it '48) season
    .. and NO! I wasn't there :-) .  If I'm not mistaken, the team 
    was in it's very infant years when he played.  In a Celtics history I
    read, he is quoted as being very annoyed at the glass backboards the
    league started using during his season.  He actually BROKE a backboard
    during one of the first games played with glass bbds.  
    
    and he was a hell of a rifleman...fulfilling my girlhood fantasies :-)
    
    Carol_cowboy_junkie
    

> minute and I'll check my paper...Ok I'm back...he played for the Dodgers in 
> 49 and 50 and the Chicago Cubs in 1951.

That would be the Brooklyn Dodgers ... 
:)
fyi,
bob

    when I heard about Lucas McCain last nite I flashed on the many
    evenings my dad and I would wait in anticipation for the Rifleman to
    come on.....that was quality family time, IMO.
    rfb

    same here rfb....I remember one nite when my Dad told me it was not on
    and sent me to bed...and after a few minutes he was up there waking me
    up to bring me down stairs to watch it ! I got on he shoulders for the
    ride to the TV room...still brings a smile to my face....
    
    

    What I loved about that show was how he preached non-violence to
    his son then ALMOST INVARIABLY wasted 12 or so bad guys with that
    rifle of his. 
    
    I liked 'Branded' too.

fwiw, Chuck broke a wooden backboard, not a glass one (this according to a 
couple of books on hoop but hey, they could be wrong)

Stolen from ::CELTICS

================================================================================
Note 25.77                       Former Celtics                         77 of 77
BTOVT::MORONG                                          38 lines  12-Nov-92 08:19
                            -< More on Connors.... >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      A good article in the local rag (Burlington Free Pree) this 
    morning talked about the backboard breaking incident.  A short
    section from the article (reprinted without permission):
    
    	It was Nov 5, 1946.  Fans arrived at the Celtics' home
    	opener straight from the polling booth, where they had
    	just elected John F Kennedy to Congress for the first
    	time.
    
    	The game at the Boston Arena against the Chicago Stags
    	was set for 8:30 that evening, and 4,329 fans had paid
    	up to $2.75 a ticket to see the first game of the new
    	National Basketball Association in Boston.
    
    	But the game was delayed for more than an hour when
    	Connors, a 6-foot-7 player from Seton Hall, took a shot
    	that bounced off the front of the rim.
    	
    	"During the warmups, I took a set shot, a harmless 15 to
    	20 foot set shot, and CRASH, the glass backboard shatter-
    	ed," Connors recalled in a 1986 interview with George
    	Sullivan, who wrote "The Picture History of the Boston
    	Celtics."
    
    	It was the first year for glass backboards.  A worker had
    	forgotten to install a piece of rubber that was supposed
    	to go between the rim and the glass.
    
    
      Other facts from the article:
    
    	Connors was the starting center for the first Boston Celtics
    	team.
    
    	Connors averaged 4.6 points a game in the 1946-47 season.  He
    	was dropped by the Celtics after 4 games of the next season.
    
    -Ron-

    Wasn't there some guy a few years back who found he could shatter the
    backboard with a calculated slam dunk? He made such a habit of it the
    NBA implimented a policy of fining anyone who shattered backboards. 
    
    Geoff clueless about sports trivia unless you ask me about the
    Whitbread or BOC

          <<< Note 156.196 by MILKWY::SAMPSON "Driven by the wind" >>>
>    Wasn't there some guy a few years back who found he could shatter the
>    backboard with a calculated slam dunk? He made such a habit of it the
>    NBA implimented a policy of fining anyone who shattered backboards. 
    
Yea but I forget his name too.  Moses Malone?  I think he only did a 
few and then the delay of games made them impose a rule as you said. 

I dunno,
bob

 I think Julius Erving used to break 'em quite a bit.





 Jum

well woooops. Every article I read yesterday mentioned it was a glass 
backboard. Time for me to eat some humble pie.

jeff

	Double-D, Daryll Dawkins: the Chocolate Thunder!

  <<< Note 156.200 by NOPROB::JOLLIMORE "kids'ey dance and shake der bones" >>>
>>	Double-D, Daryll Dawkins: the Chocolate Thunder!

Ah yes!!

He was HUGE!

Yup , Dawkins was the one.  He was one of the main reasons the NBA started 
using the spring-loaded rims.  Most colleges use them too, maybe all new 
backboards have them.  Where the rim attaches to the backboard there is a 
spring, that lets the rim flex downward on a slam and the snaps it back into 
place.  Makes it very hard to shatter a backboard now, although it still 
happens on occasion.

Scott_who wishes_he_could_just_touch_the_rim_never_mind_slam_dunk

Chocolate Thunder
>He was HUGE!
	
	Not to mention witty and intelligent  ;-P  ;-)

    
    
    Hell, they've got collapsable rims in most high schools now too.  I had
    my share of rim collapses!!  :^)
    
    Treeman_who_can_still_dunk_but_not_like_he_could_in_HIGH_school.

    RIP Superman......oh who will save us now......

> oh who will save us now......

	Bullwinkle?

   Stimpy?

    look in the sky...its a bird ! its a plane ! its, its a frog ?
    
    a frog ?
    
    no no, it just little old me Underdog !
    
    :')

    It's clear that Pooh will save us.
    

> RIP Superman......oh who will save us now......
    
    Chris, as a long time reader of comics, I take all such reports of
    death with a large grain of salt.  Especially when it happens to a
    major character like Supe's.  I think I've already heard of his
    'return' but I can't seem to pin down the memory.
    
    PeterT
    

    Old Kal El will be reincarnated next summer (musta been a Bhuddist :-).
    
    ger

Cap'n America will save us ... catch us now, we're falling ....

- dc

We don' need no steenkin' Superman!

*I've* got a pocket full of Kryptonite...

:-)

> *I've* got a pocket full of Kryptonite...

Is it green, Adam?  Maybe you should go to a doctor??? :-)

Dave

I heard the other day that Superman was going to be on Larry King live and 
if enough people fraom all 50 states called in he would come back.

Geoff

    :-)

    Caught Jay Leno before heading off to bed last night, and he had this
    before/after thing.  When Superman was alive... and Now that he's
    dead...  One of them went something like
    When Superman was alive...
       He was always trying to avoid kryptonite
    Now that he's dead...
    
       He's lying in a crypt tonight!
    
    PeterT
    

         <<< COOKIE::DISK$SYSTEM_3:[NOTES$LIBRARY]FOLK_MUSIC.NOTE;1 >>>
                                -< FOLK MUSIC >-
================================================================================
Note 1031.0            Roy Acuff - RIP - He will be missed            No replies
PRMS00::TLIGHTON "Redskins - 1991 NFL Champions"      9 lines  23-NOV-1992 07:39
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	I heard on the radio this morning as I was driving to work that Roy 
Acuff passed away over night in a Nashville hospital.  He was a member of the 
Grand Ole Opry for 54 years and apparently died of congestive heart failure.  
This man was truely a father of country music, but his contributions to folk 
and bluegrass music as well cannot be ignored.  He will truely be missed, but 
thanks to his many wonderful recordings, I can be sure that my child (due in 
March) will be able to fully appreciate his talents and his gift.

				Tom

 He was one of those guys that I figgered would never die..:-(







Jum

    Sterling Holloway, the 'voice' of Pooh, died at age 87 this past
    Sunday.  
    

Was Sterling Holloway also an actor, and if so, did he play the Birdman
of Alcatraz in some movie ... ?  

- DC

    >>                  <<< Note 156.220 by SMURF::PETERT >>>
    >>                        -< tah tah for now... >-

    >> Sterling Holloway, the 'voice' of Pooh, died at age 87 this past
    >> Sunday.  
    
    
    :( does that mean Pooh will become unspoken?
    
    sparky

    Holloway was also the snake in the Jungle Book, the stork in Dumbo,
    voices in the Aristocats, and several more I can't remember now...
    rfb

    Holloway was also an actor, mainly a character actor playing country 
    bumpkins or delivery boys ;-)  He appeared in "Gold Diggers of 1933",
    "The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend", "Casey at the Bat", "American
    Madness", "Hell Below", "Life Begins at 40", "Professor Beware", "The
    Bluebird", "A Walk in the Sun", "Shake, Rattle, and Rock", and "Live
    a Little, Love a Little".  He was also a regular on the TV series
    "The Life of Riley" from '53 to '58 where he played Riley's friend
    Waldo, an amateur inventor (got that Treemon? ;-)  And he also
    appeared in "The Baileys of Balboa" in '64-'65.  All this culled
    from todays New York Times.  They didn't show a picture of him last
    night on the news (just Pooh and the snake ;-)  But looking at his 
    picture in the Times today, I know I've seen him in something (though
    lord only knows which of the above!)  I immediately 'heard' Pooh's 
    voice when I saw the picture.  RIP Pooh.
    
    PeterT

I'm sure I saw him in at least one episode of Batman.

- Dave, Cultural Elitist

    maybe Superman, not that he was not in Batman

    I think I remember him from a slew of sitcom appearances.  He was kinda
    Pooh-looking, bumbling and at a loss of words.  Sort of like Aunt Clara
    on Bewitched.
    
    Scott
    

re               <<< Note 156.227 by TLE::ABBOT "No more years" >>>

>    I think I remember him from a slew of sitcom appearances.  He was kinda
>    Pooh-looking, bumbling and at a loss of words.  Sort of like Aunt Clara
>    on Bewitched.
    
Yes!  Definite major resemblance!  

Oh, bother ...

- DC

    Yeah, he played yet-another-absent-minded-scientist in at least one
    episode of Superman.
    
    gary

    re .229
    I just saw this episode!  I think it was on Nickelodeon, but I'm not
    too sure of that as I wasn't in charge of the remote ;-)  We were 
    visiting my sister-in-law's for turkey and channel surfing when we
    stopped at an old Superman for a while.  Lo and behold, there was 
    Sterling Holoway as the wacky inventor with a time machine!  After
    being told to test it out, he transports Clark, Lois, Jimmy, Perry
    White, some fugitive, and himself back 50,000 years to pre-historic
    times.  Of course they can't get back right away because Professor 
    Pooh ;-) needs some odd substance to make it work in reverse.  
    Sigh.... I just love the premise of these old shows (or of Supes 
    disguise in particular).  Suddenly, back in the stone age, Superman
    shows up, is unable to "crack" the time barrier, but no-one has a 
    clue that he came along with them in the first place!  Good for 
    a few laughs.
    
    PeterT
    

 I think he was also in the episode about a guy that invented some stuff that
 if you spray it on someone, they forget everything that happened in the last
 5 mins...one of the funniest I've ever seen :-)





 Jum

    Albert King died yesterday of heart falure at 69......
    

    
    No!  :-( :-(
    
    

    bummer.
        

RE:      <<< Note 156.232 by SLOHAN::FIELDS "and we'd go Running On Faith" >>>

   > Albert King died yesterday of heart falure at 69......
    


     Wow....I'm speechless.  The finest blues guitarist I've ever seen..back 
     in the late 60's he was my idol..I must have seen him 50 times.  To me
     this is like the death of Buddy Holly. :-(  Everytime I listen to Stevie
     Ray Vaughn I hear some of Albert King in his playing..


     I'll never forget the night I saw him at a club in SF and he sat down 
     with my step brother and I and bummed a cigarette from me and we talked
     for a bit..

     For those that don't know, Albert was a bulldozer driver in Mississippi,
     (they used to say he could scoop up a carpet off a floor without scratching
     the floor)..was left handed learned to play on a guitar strung for a right-
     hander and just turned it upside down.  In the late 60's he played both
     Fillmores quite a bit, probably the best show I saw him do was a show he
     did with BB King and I believe Buddy Guy..and IMO blew them both away..



     Dang, I'm bummed :-(



 Jum

   

Big time bummer :-(  I gotta beat slash for my Albert King CD that he's had
since last march....


anyways, i'm sure ronnie earl will pay him a special tribute this wednesday...


:-(

 Well, I'm here having an Albert King Memorial festival, but I can't find
my Live Wire Blues Power CD....I'll never forget that show :-(





Jum "Can you dig the Blues Power" H.

    So it's time to trot out the white artists for a quote on King's death. 
    Was the high point of his career the fact that he influenced Cream?  At
    least Clapton has the respect to acknowledge his sources, Led Zeppelin
    stabbed them in the back and ripped them off.
    
    Look for a quote from Pat Boone when Little Richard passes on . . .
    
    Jamie

 I think the high point in Albert's carreer was in 1968 when he was invited 
 by Bill Graham to play on a bill with Jimi Hendrix (and Janis I believe)..he
 eventually became a "permanent member of the Fillmore family)..which also 
 coincided with the release of Born Under a Bad Sign.   Cream's Strange Brew
 is almost note for note Albert licks, which Clapton has acknowledged.  Mike
 Bloomfield also claimed influence from him (according to this morning's Globe).
 Clapton does a fine versin of Crosscut Saw on his Money and Cigarettes album.


 I finally found my copy of Live Wire Blues Power last night..if anybody is
 interested in some fine live Albert King..LWBP is great (I was there!) along
 with 2 other albums...Wednesday night in San Francisco and Thursday night 
 in San Francisco, recording during the same run as LWBP.  He did another live
 album in Europe that IMO is not quite as good, but still a good representation
 of his playing..

 Reminiscing about him last night brought back memories of an old girlfriend
 with whom I saw him several times :-)



 Jum



PS...can anybody tell I'm an Albert King fan? 

re     <<< Note 156.239 by CSLALL::HENDERSON "Somewhere in San Francisco" >>>


> I finally found my copy of Live Wire Blues Power last night..if anybody is
> interested in some fine live Albert King..LWBP is great (I was there!) along

will ya make me a copy mon????   :-) :-)
(Bob white would hang us all!) :-)


>PS...can anybody tell I'm an Albert King fan? 

Nah :-)....    this is a hard thing to deal with.  i remember when stevie ray
went to the great blues bar up there... i was pretty bummed out;  even when
brent went, i was really bummed....  hang in there mon...  he'll be playin'
the blues up there for all of us....

rip albert.

jc

    It just pisses me off that every time one of the blues greats dies, all
    I hear is ". . . who wrote xxx, which has been covered by The Rolling
    Stones, etc."  As if having their song recorded by popular white
    artists legitimizes their careers.  Most of the blame lies with the
    journalists, but some groups (Led Zeppelin being the prime offender)
    unforgiveably ripped them off.
    
    Jamie

    RIP Albert King...one of the best..
    
    rfb

    Johnny Most.....RIP

    Just heard a couple of bummers on the radio...
    
    Dizzy Gillespe died of cancer at age 65.
    
    Rudolf nureyev died of cardiac arrest brough about by "a cruel disease"
    at age 54.
    
    Two people with major influences on their respective arts.
    
    And I finally found out why Dizzy used the funny looking horn.  One
    night, just before performing, someone stepped on his trumpet.  He
    didn't have time to fix it before the show, so he used it with the
    bell pointed up at a funny angle.  He found he could hear himself
    better with the bell that way, and stuck with it.

    re .244
    
    I think Diz was 74.  Last night I sat in my room & played a bunch of
    his stuff . . . he will be sadly missed.
    
    But, as Chief Seattle said, "There is no death, only a change of
    worlds."
    
    Peace & All That Jazz,
    Lorax

    RE: last 2
    
    Diz was 75...dead of pancreatic cancer.
    
    Marc

Eliza Doolittle, a.k.a. Audrey Hepburn; of cancer at 63.

One incredibly classy woman.  R.I.P.

tim

    I just read this in Guitar notes...
    
    
    Toy Caldwell, guitarist, vocalist and founding member of the Marshall 
    Tucker Band, died yesterday at his home in South Carolina.  He was 45.
    He had been suffering from Bronchitis and Pneumonia.
    
    

      <<< Note 156.248 by SLOHAN::FIELDS "and we'd go Running On Faith" >>>
>    Toy Caldwell, guitarist, vocalist and founding member of the Marshall 


Wow A stroke of bad luck is running in that family.  Didn't his brother die
some time ago (5-10 years back)...I'm thinking of Tommy Caldwell....

yes? 
bob

    re.248
    
    He was scheduled to play at Jacks Saloon in Uxbridge this Sunday.
    
    Don

    yes to both....Tommy, Toy's younger, brother die in '78 after getting
    home from a tour. His wife picked him up at the airport and on the way
    home he flipped the landrover, he was driving, over and died of
    injuries....I saw Toy about 3 yr ago in Norhtboro...this was his 1st
    coming out he had done after the break up of MTB....odd thing was last
    week I saw his Video on TNN (with Charlie Daniels) it was hot southern
    kick a$$ style Toy always put out, and it made me want to see him again
    I saw the add for Jacks but figured I could wait for another show, as
    for Sunday nights was not good for me.....
    
    
    	MTB was the band I love to listen to, and still do I've got two
    boots of them one was Tommy's last show in NY (Nassua I think) the
    other was a year or so later when they were promoting the Dedicated LP.
    Like the Dead back in the mid to late 70s MTB was a great band to see
    play live, one week I saw them 6 times, I started on the Cape and
    endded in Springfield....if I remember correctly I saw the Allman's on
    the off night ! Yes I was a Southern Rock freak in the 70s, and from
    this love of CDB, MTB, ABB, and many other bands I found the DEAD...
    
    Toy's playing will always be something I will never forget, I think I
    will go home and pull out "Together Forever" and give it a spin on the
    turn table (even if the cartridge needs to be replaced)
    
    
    Chris

    Pigpen, 20 years ago today - March 8, 1973.

I just read in the Folk notefile...there's an obit for Mr. Bones in today's
Boston Glob. :-(

I feel very fortunate to have seen Mr. Bones on stage three times...twice
for entire shows with Spider John, one for just a single song with Michelle
Shocked.  He was quite unique, and he really lit up the stage.  Not to 
mention that he simply boggled my mind trying to figure out just how the
hell he made them two sticks of bone make all those sounds!

I guess the obit must mention that there's gonna be a memorial show at
Johnnie D's in Somererville MA (Davis Square) next month.  I bet the place
will be packed.

tms

 I only got to see him once, and I loved him 


 :-(  indeed.



 Jim

    yes I saw this too....RIP Mr. Bones.....I saw hinm last at EMLowes with
    the Band maybe a year or so ago....1st time I saw him was at the 1 X-mas 
    Party Slipknot had Molly's .....
    
    
    Chris

    
    I remember seeing him at Slipknot's first xmas party_AND_ten year 
    anniversary party at Molly's.  lesse that was umm 1987 ?  yikes
    
    c

I ripped this off from the Folk conference.  Figured some of ya in here
might be interested and might not be Folk readers...look for the Mickey
Hart reference...

tms
 
"Music in his bones, Burrill put bones into the music"

    [reprinted without permission from the Boston Globe, 17-Mar-1993]

John Alden Burrill Jr. - better known as Mr. Bones - was a true original.
He was an authentic Yankee, a descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims and one
of the finest, most well-liked percussionists to ever play local stages,
local streets and folk festivals as far away as New Orleans, Winnipeg and
Cambridge, England.

Mr. Bones died yesterday at age 72, after fighting a brain cancer that
stilled a wondrous talent that had endeared him to musicians from Bonnie
Raitt and Michelle Shocked to Buddy Guy and Beausoleil.

Burrill, whose polyrhythmic skill was exceeded only by his wry charm, had
carte blanche to sit in with musicians anytime, anywhere.  Although stooped
over from spinal arthritis, he brought a joie de vivre to performing that
totally belied his age and physical condition.  With dazzling dexterity, he
clacked together bones made from the shin bones of a cow, having first seen
them used in minstrel shows in the '30s.

"When you play the bones, you don't need anything else to get you high," he
said in a Globe interview last year, before joining bluesman Spider John
Koerner at the Plough & Stars in Cambridge.

"He was a character all his own," Koerner said yesterday.  "When we played,
he was not necessarily a background element.  He charmed people.  He was
always trying to get them started playing the bones."

When Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart first met Burrill, he asked, 'Who
have you played with?"  The response was classic Burrill:  "Name 'em," he
said with a smile.

For starters, there was Raitt (he played with her on Boston Common and at
Great Woods), Koerner, The Band, Doc Watson, C. J. Chenier, John Hammond,
Queen Ida, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Roomful of Blues, Tiny Tim, Kenny Neal,
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, John Hartford, Peter Rowan, Charmaine Neville,
Zachary Richard and Boozoo Chavis.

Incredibly, Mr. Bones would turn up anywhere from Johnny D's in Somerville
to the Rat in Boston, where, in the '70s, he played with the Infliktors and
Fabulous Billygoons.  "When I first played the Rat, I had earplugs.  It was
110 decibels in there," he said.  "But I enjoyed it.  I became known as the
first punk-funk bones player in the country."

A Brockton native, Burrill got his musical start on the streets.  "I
started playing with him in 1976," folk-bluesman Elijah Wald said
yesterday.  "Back then, he'd come out every single night in Harvard Square
and just play with whoever was there.  That's how he started."

"Nobody ever said no to him as far as I know," Mickey Bones, a local
drummer and percussionist, said yesterday.

"I don't rehearse with anybody.  It wouldn't do me much good.  I don't know
notes or music.  I just have rhythm, that's all," said Burrill, who lived
in Brookline.

He leaves a sister, Pauline Brown of Somerville, and two daughters, Susan
Ferr and Judy Burrill.  Funeral arrangements are private, but longtime
aide-de-camp Jan Cornish said a night in his honor is being planned for
Johnny D's next month.

--------------------------------------
Paul Robicheau contributed to this story.

    Mr. B was backstage at the Planet Drum shows with Mickey...  giving
    lessons on bone-playing... :^)
    
    						da ve

    George Ives, a former British mounted infantryman who is believed to
    be the last survivor of the Boer War, has died in British Colombia,
    aged 111.
 

    I'm not up on English history.  What was the Boer War all about.  Musta
    been a real Bore!  :^)
    

     The Software Toolworks Illustrated Encyclopedia (TM)
     (c) 1991 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.

     South African War
     
          The South African War (1899-1902), also known as the Boer War, was a
     conflict between Great Britain and the two Afrikaner (Boer) governments of
     the South African Republic (the Transvaal) and the Orange Free State.  The
     European settlers in both areas were mainly of Dutch ancestry and were
     known as Boers, or AFRIKANERS.  In response to Boer pressures Britain had
     awarded independence to the Orange Free State in 1854.  A brief revolt in
     1881 (sometimes called the First South African War) had restored to the
     Transvaal the independence it had lost to Britain in 1877.  Both republics
     remained under British suzerainty, however.
     
          The discovery (1886) of gold at the Witwatersrand in the Transvaal
     attracted a large number of European immigrants--mainly British--who built
     up the country's mining industry and came to control the major part of its
     wealth. President Paul KRUGER welcomed the economic enterprise of these
     Uitlanders (foreigners) but at the same time feared the threat that they
     posed to the Boers' agricultural and noncommercial way of life;  he
     refused to make any major political concessions to the newcomers.
     Anglo-Boer relations worsened because of disputes over the franchise and a
     variety of economic issues and especially after an illegal and
     unsuccessful raid carried out in 1895 by British administrator Sir Leander
     Starr JAMESON against the Transvaal in support of the Uitlanders.  The
     Transvaal strengthened its armed forces, concluded an alliance with the
     Orange Free State, and presented the British with an ultimatum protesting
     the reinforcement of the British garrison in South Africa.
     
          The Afrikaners called the ensuing war the Second War of Freedom. 
     During the first phase of the war (1899-1900), the Boer forces gained some
     immediate victories.  They laid siege to Mafeking, Kimberley, and
     Ladysmith, but all were eventually relieved by British troops under Lord
     KITCHENER and Lord ROBERTS.  In the second phase of the war (1900) the
     British defeated the main Boer armies and occupied Pretoria, the Transvaal
     capital.  In the last phase (1900-02) the Boers took to guerrilla warfare,
     and the British retaliated by subjecting the Boer population to harsh
     treatment, including detention in concentration camps.  The Boers were
     finally forced to conclude peace at Vereeniging in 1902.  The two Boer
     republics were reduced to British colonies, but they were able to exact
     some important concessions from the British.
     
          The South African War was the largest military conflict waged in
     sub-Saharan Africa. The British mobilized nearly 450,000 soldiers--as
     opposed to a maximum of about 80,000 Boers. The conflict was both a war of
     imperial supremacy and a civil war among whites; about 53,000 white,
     mainly English-speaking, South Africans fought in the British ranks. The
     black Africans stood aloof. In Britain the excesses of the war aroused the
     first significant outpouring of anti-imperialist sentiment. In South
     Africa the war led to a rebirth of Afrikaner nationalism and to the
     unification of South Africa through the formation of the Union of South
     Africa (1910), in which the Afrikaners ultimately gained political
     supremacy.
     
     L. H. Gann
     
     Bibliography:
     Barthorp, Michael, The Anglo-Boer War (1987); Belfield, Eversley, The Boer
     War (1976);  Farwell, Byron, The Great Anglo-Boer War (1976);  Holt,
     Edgar, The Boer War (1958); Lehmann, Joseph H., The First Boer War (1972; 
     The Software Toolworks Illustrated Encyclopedia (TM)
     (c) 1991 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.

     repr.  1987); LeMay, Godfrey Hugh Lancelot, British Supremacy in South
     Africa, 1899-1907 (1965);  Maurice, John F., History of the War in South
     Africa, 1899-1902, 4 vols.  (1906-10);  Pakenham, Thomas, The Boer War
     (1979).
     

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    For an excellent view of the Boer War you should rent a superbly done
    movie titled "Breaker Morant".  It is an Auzzie production and starts
    Robert Woodward and Bryan Brown.  One of the alltime best movies
    dealing with the political and personal/moral aspects of fighting a
    war.
    
    Highly recommended.  
    
    Marv
    

    DITO - "BREAKER MORANT" is an excellent movie.
    

    Edward Woodward, and it is "aussie", with no zeds :-)
    
    "Breaker Morant" is an excellent film, as is the stage play although it
    is very different (the main character in the play is the lawyer
    assigned to defend The Breaker and his cohorts). They complement each
    other nicely. Both were derived from a book ("The Breaker", I think)
    which sparked a wave of interest in Australia's involvement in the Boer
    War. Nasty business.
    
    gary

    Ah "Breaker Morant".  I've heard of that.
    
    Tim, your reply about the Boar War ended up in the Sherlock Holmes
    notesfile.  We were talking about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
    
    dave

>    Tim, your reply about the Boar War ended up in the Sherlock Holmes


Boer, dammit!!!


Sheesh.

    
    I've been meaning to post this in here..
    
    Sun Ra died this past Sunday.  :-(  
    
    

    re .-1
    
    My understanding of Saturnian culture is lacking, but I don't think
    they die in our sense of the word.  Besides, it'll take music 50 years
    to catch up with him, so that extends his life to 2043 at least.
    
    Jamie

    I sure this is what I heard so if I wrong Im sorry
    
    Pat Nixon passed away this morning....
    
    
    Chris

    Catherine Leno passed away yesterday of cancer at 82, shes the Mother
    of "Tonight Show" Host Jay Leno.....

    
    	"SPANKY" McFarland of Little Rascals fame passed away yesterday
    at age 64.  How many of those guys are still alive?
    
    

    yes its a very sad day.....:.( but everyting will be Otay.....

Oh, Spanky McFarland ... I thought I heard Spanky MacFarlane ... wasn't she
the woman in the band "Spanky and Our Gang?"

    They'll never learn....
    I spent countless ours watching the littel Rascals.  Probably time to 
    turn my kid onto them.  Do they show regularly anywhere in the Greater
    Boston area?
    Spanky was just recently on one of the final Cheer's.  Not the last one
    but the penultimate or 2nd to lst I think.  It was the opening skit and
    Cliff and Norm had noticed this guy sitting across the bar who looked
    like Spanky.  So Cliff goes over and goes into his spiel about how
    he loved the little Rascals and how he wanted to tell them something
    or other and it just digressed for a minute or two and then Cliff
    asked him "So you aren't really Spanky, are you?" To which the guy 
    replied hastily, "No, not me?"  And after Cliff walked away, 
    Norm asks, "You are Spanky, aren't you?"  To which Spanky nods his 
    head in acknowledgement.  So long Spanky, you'll live on forever....
    
    PeterT
    

    Grapevine, Texas - George "Spanky" McFarland, the chubby child star of
    "Our Gang" and "Little Rascals" fame, died yesterday at age 64.
    	McFarland died less than an hour after arriving at the emergency
    department of Baylor Grapevine Hospital, said spokesman Steve Tatum.
    The cause of death wasn't immediately known.
    	McFarland's acting career began in 1931 at age 3 when he modeled
    baby cloths in his hometown of Dallas. Helater made Wonder Bread
    commercials that were noticed by director Hal Roach, the creative force
    behind "Our Gang".
    	In addition to "Our Gang" McFarland made 14 feature-length movies
    including "Trail of the Lonesome Pine" with Henry Fonda & Fred
    MacMurray and "Woman in the Window" with Edward G. Robinson.
    	He finished his movie career while still a teen-ager.
    	"When I reached 16, adn they stopped made the comedies, I made the
    decision then - I told my parents - I wasn't going to make anymore
    films" he told the Midland Reporter Telegram in 1988.
    	After retiring from the movie industry, McFarland went into sales,
    working for a wine company and a car dealership. He also owned a BBQ
    restaurant in Olkahoma City. He later was a spokesman for Justin Boot
    Co.
    
    

    	Only one left is Robert Blake, I believe.
    
    	Scott

    the last of the Three Stooges died over the weekend too...Curley Joe? I
    think. He was never in the 200 short films that we all grew up with, but
    stared in some of the full length feature films that came out later...
    
    Also, couple of weeks ago would have been Moes 50 ? birthday...Hoot
    Gibson has 5 hours of old Stooges on tape in memory of...SPREAD OUT!!!
    
    
    rfb

I think Moe would've been a lot older than 50, porcupine.  ;^)  He looked
older than that before he died.

"OW OW OW OW OW ... oh look!"

- DC

    ya, I thought about that after I entered the note...more like 80???
    
    
    rfb

    Joe Besser (sp?) I think is still alive....the orbit I read on Curly
    Joe listed when all the others had passed away but not Joe Besser, I
    its possible he might be still here with us....fyi
    
    Chris

    His name was Joe De Mita.  He was a character actor before he started
    doing Stooge stuff in the late fifties.  He was then known as "Curly
    Joe" De Mita.  
    
    Once in a while you can catch him in a small role in some old B movie.
    
    Of course, (IMO) he couldn't compare to the original, or even Shemp and 
    Joe Besser, for that matter.
    
    Bud
    
       

    	Bud,
    
    	I thinks it's Joe De Rita.
    
    	Scott

Fred Gwynne, 66, died Friday.

    re: .282
    
    Thanks, Scott.  You're right.
    
    OK, so who is Joe De Mita?  That must be Mighty Joe Young's real name.
    
    Bud

    Curly Joe was the last of the Stooges. Shemp died first, then Curly.
    Joe Besser died in the early 60's I believe. Moe and Larry both died in
    1975.
    
    Don Drysdale, Hall of Fame pitcher with the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers, also
    passed away this weekend. 
    
    I also saw where Jimmy "the weasel" Fratiano (sp?), a reputed and
    convicted mob kingpin, died.
    
    jeff

    Fred Gwynne, as in Herman Munster.....thats a shock, as I know that
    Granpa is still alive.....me and my brother use to have fights about
    which show to watch , the Munster's or Addam's Family...but it always
    came down to which family would you live with, I always said the
    Addam's Family because they looked normal (besides Cousin It, but it
    was the 60's and I just thought he was a rill hippy 8*)) but my brother
    always thought with food in mind, at least the Munster ate oatmeal for
    breakfast ! man that always worked in his favor to....
    
    Chris

    I just heard that Davey Allison died this morning from his injures in a
    coptor crash yesterday afternoon, he was piloting the helicoptor.
    
    sad day for racing fans...

	I will miss him....

	I was at the Winston Cup race in N.H. Sunday and 
	Davey maintained a steady clip for the almost the
	entire race finishing 3rd behind Rusty Wallace and 
	Mark Martin.  My first NASCAR race and I feel lucky
	to have seen him in person.
	
	This is the 2nd Winston Cup driver that has been 
	killed this season in flight.  None have died on 
	the track.

    Reggie Lewis.....he died of what seems to be heart failure...
    
    he was 27

re      <<< Note 156.289 by SLOHAN::FIELDS "and we'd go Running On Faith" >>>
                                  -< sad day >-

>    Reggie Lewis.....he died of what seems to be heart failure...
 

sad day indeed.  he died yesturday while shooting some hoops at bradies.
they said he was not even breaking a sweat...

now, malpractice suits are going to fly everywhere.  you see, last season he
colapsed while playing and some specialists said: no way, no more b-ball for
you, while others said: no problem; it is treatable,etc...  a lawyers field day,
someone's gonna pay...

sad.  27 yrs old.

    in today's Worcester T&G....
    
    	The death of a local woman know for her research work in
    ornithology is being investigated for a possible link to the
    hantavirus, the mystery illness that has claimed at least 14 lives in
    the southwest.
    
    	Jeanne M. Messier, 27, of 37 Harvey Lane Westboro Ma., died Friday 
    of lung failure in Washoe Medical Center, Reno, Nev.
    
    	Messier was a UoC San Diego grad student of ornithology working in
    Mammoth Lakes Calf. (which about 600 mile north of the four corners
    region of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado & Utah, where most of the
    confirmed deaths have occurred).
    
    ******************************
    
    	I knew this woman's brother, Paul, very well.
    
    although I have not talked to Paul in years (he lives in Colorado) this
    news really hit home. I heard the news on the radio first but did not
    connect the two until I saw the news paper report....I was in cub scouts
    with Paul, and his Mother was the den leader....Jeanne was this little
    girl that was always there (she must have been like 4 yrs old then) and
    seeing her grow up and hearing the news of her death was a shock....
    
    I will most likely go the service tomorrow...she was a bright light in
    her family.
    
    Chris

They say that eventually everyone will know someone who has succumbed to
AIDS.  On friday I learned that the brother of a friend of mine in Miami
finally passed away, having been diagnosed over five years ago.  I met
Jimmy when he moved in with my friend, his sister, about four years ago.
I think he was about 30 years old.

R.I.P., Tio Jimmy. :-(

tim

    my heart goes to both of you, Chris and Tim
    
    
    
    rfb

    Raymond Burr....past away last night, he was 76 (I think)
    
    Chris

    
    Vincent Price, from lung cancer.
    
    

    River Phoenix, actor, 23 years old.
    
    Collapsed outside Hollywood nightclub Sat. night and died.  Autopsy
    will be performed today, but rumors are that the death was drug-related. 
    :(  :(
    
    
    :(, danielle

    
    also Federico Fellini, 73.
    
    

    Bill Bixby died of cancer over the weekend...

    Bill Bixby...truely a brave man. Had I been dealing with his personal
    pain for as long as he did, I'm afraid I'dve opted for the Kavorkian
    method....

What was the story?  I wasn't aware he was enduring a prolonged
trouble...he's been a favorite ever since "My Favorite Martian"....

tim

    bill bixby -- lost his young son in the 70's (?, car wreck?)), 
    his wife never got over it, divorced him, shortly afterwards commited 
    suicide. He then gets diagnosed with some form of cancer, he was the 
    only one in the US to get some experimental drug for that form of cancer. 
    
    I did hear that his life had done a extrame turn-a-round lately, new
    wife (?), cancer had stopped growing, pain decreased, etc....
    
    rfb

    Albert Collins Blues guitarist.....

    PaBLOW "is this line mine ?" Escobar is still dead....

    Frank Zappa - Saturday, December 4th,  52 years old
                                          
    :(, danielle

    He's happy and pain-free in that great Dental Floss Ranch somewhere in
    Montana.
    
    

    
    A 'dynamo' if there ever was one.  Sad to see you go, Frank.
    
    carol

    I was lucky enough to see Frank in concert 3 times...no too many shows
    like that, where the "star" sits on a stool smokin' a cigarette, then
    conducts the band with a baton, then rips into guitar solos that only
    FZ could play...
    
    brought Apostrophe/Overnite Sensation disc into work today
    
    Wes

    Bummer.    :-(
    
    Well, at least now he's happily jamming away in the land of the Grand
    Wazoo and the Green Rosetta...
    
    

    I saw Frank once with Jonn-Luc Ponte, Ruth Underwood and her brother
    doing the Overnite Sensation tour...freaking amazing.
    
     A friend saw him in 69 at a college in Kansas city once where and the
    Mothers had been playin a song for 20-30 mins, Frank stops them and
    says "If we're gonna play this, we're gonna play it right." and then
    starts the whole song over again. 
    
    RIP, Frank
    
    rfb
    

	Don Amechie(sp?)  - Cancer

RIP

re: Cancer

There was an interesting article in yesterday's WSJ...  Some scientists
have found a gene that is linked to colon, ovarian, and <one other deadly>
cancer.  Now they can screen members of families prone to these cancers for
suceptibility, and then do regular tests for early detection, etc...

It ain't a cure, but it's a step in the right direction!

- jeff

>>     <<< Note 156.312 by SUBPAC::MAGGARD "Careful with that AXP Eugene!" >>>
                         -< Genetic research is good >-

re: Cancer

>>There was an interesting article in yesterday's WSJ...  Some scientists
>>have found a gene that is linked to colon, ovarian, and <one other deadly>
>>cancer.  Now they can screen members of families prone to these cancers for
>>suceptibility, and then do regular tests for early detection, etc...

>>It ain't a cure, but it's a step in the right direction!

  I've seen reports by some doctors that claim there IS a cure for cancer.
 But the AMA and "others" don't want it known because of the massive amounts
 of $$$ for research and current treatments etc, that would be lost. 


 I don't know whether it's true or not.


 Shawn

>  I've seen reports by some doctors that claim there IS a cure for cancer.
> But the AMA and "others" don't want it known because of the massive amounts
> of $$$ for research and current treatments etc, that would be lost. 

yeah, and what would it do to our relationships with the aliens mentioned
in some other note around here?

/rich

Guitarist exceptional.   Composer extraordinaire.   Activist extreme.

It was Frank Zappa's adolescent twist on surrealism I loved best, and he
never gave up that adolescence. He did mature, though, only by virture of
the fact that he grew older, and this quelled his creativity. History will 
show his rap to be the best damned parody of our time. 

LOS ANGELES (Dec. 6) UPI - Frank Zappa, a composer, arranger, musical and 
political satirist and social critic who released his ''The Yellow Shark''
album just last month, died Saturday at his Laurel Canyon home after battling
prostate cancer for several years. He was 52. 

During his musical career, Zappa was typecast as an eccentric crank who wrote
funny, controversial songs with dirty lyrics. His songs conjured up a
fundamentalist's nightmare of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, but Zappa was
anything but depraved. 

Zappa did not take drugs or drink alcohol and had campaigned against 
drug-taking since the 1960s. He also didn't permit his band members to take
drugs on the road. 

In fact, Zappa, who never drove despite living in Los Angeles, was an astute
businessman. In recent years he had turned to international business, forming
a licensing, consulting and social engineering firm investing in
U.S.-Soviet/Eastern Bloc joint ventures. 

Zappa and his wife of more than 20 years, Gail, also ran their own record
label, Barking Pumpkin, a mail-order company, a video company and a music
publishing firm. The couple had four children. 

A private funeral service was held Sunday. 

Zappa began battling government, the record industry and music critics in the
late 1960s, and in the 1980s took on anti-pornography campaigns and
fundamentalist preachers as well. 

In 1966 he released his first album, ''Freak Out.'' The groundbreaking record
by Zappa's group, the Mothers of Invention, was a synthesis of modern
classical music, jazz, vocal group rhythm and blues, '60s rock and the kind of
avant-garde theatricality that has since come to be called performance art. 

''Freak Out'' and the albums that followed it, ''Absolutely Free'' and ''We're
Only in it for the Money,'' contained sociopolitical caricatures of American
lifestyles that amused many listeners bu created resentment among the targets
of Zappa's scorn, from drunken parents more concerned about their swimming
pools than their kids to ''phony hippies'' who inspired Zappa to proclaim that
''flower power sucks.'' 

Zappa became so identified with satiric material that the ambitious music that
followed was frequently identified as another joke. But ''Lumpy Gravy,''
''Cruising with Ruben and the Jets,'' ''Uncle Meat,'' ''Hot Rats,'' ''Burnt
Weeny Sandwich'' and ''Weasels Ripped My Flesh'' proved Zappa had few musical
peers. 

The next incarnation of the Mothers of Invention, fronted by ex- Turtles Mark
Volman and Howard Kaylan, was featured in the bizarre underground film classic
''200 Motels'' and on several albums, ''Chunga's Revenge,'' ''Fillmore East,
June 1971,'' ''Just Another Band From L.A.'' and ''Waka/Jawaka.'' 

After releasing the dense instrumental arrangements for ''The Grand Wazoo,''
Zappa unveiled yet another version of the Mothers that toured extensively in
the mid-1970s and accounted for a series of his most popular albums:
''Over-Nite Sensation,'' ''Apostrophe,'' ''One Size Fits All,'' ''Zoot
Allures'' and ''Zappa in New York.'' 

Zappa's next record, ''Shiek Yerbouti,'' was one of his most controversial
albums. His satiric imagination scaled Swiftian heights with the disco parody
''Dancing Fool'' and ''Jewish Princess,'' a lampoon that drew public outrage
from Dinah Shore and B'nai B'rith. 

Zappa closed out the 1970s with ''Joe's Garage,'' a three-LP set with a bitter,
tragic story line about a country where music is outlawed. 

Zappa started out fresh in the 1980s, releasing some of his most challenging
records and embarking on an ambitious plan to consolidate his overall musical
output. 

He coined the word ''xenocrony,'' or strange synchronization, to describe his
organizational principle of matching different parts of different concerts to
create an entirely new musical statement. 

Zappa used the ''xenocrony'' technique to remarkable effect on a series of
1981 instrumental albums, ''Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar,'' ''Shut Up 'N Play
Yer Guitar Some More'' and ''The Return of the Son of Shut Up 'N Play Yer
Guitar.'' Like most of his 1980s work, the records were released by his own
Barking Pumpkin record label. 

In addition to albums with his working group, Zappa finally got the chance to
release his first classical recordings in the '80s, ''London Symphony
Orchestra'' Volumes I and II and ''Boulez Conducts Zappa, The Perfect
Stranger.'' 

In 1983 he sued his former record company, Warner Bros., to get ownership of
the master tapes of his records so he could reap the profits when the works
were reissued on compact discs. He also claimed Warner Bros. had miscalculated
the royalties due him. 

Zappa said he lost his zeal for touring after a self-financed 1988 outing with
a 12-piece band cost him $400,000. 

''That sort of dampens one's enthusiasm for going out there and doing it again,
'' he said. 

Unlike many major rock acts, Zappa refused to accept corporate sponsorship
because he did not want to promote products. 

According to Billboard magazine, Zappa's three biggest singles were novelty
songs - ''Don't Eat the Yellow Snow,'' which reached No. 4 on the charts in
1974, ''Dancin' Fool,'' which hit No. 8 in 1979, and ''Valley Girl,'' No. 12
in 1982. ''Valley Girl'' featured his daughter, Moon Unit, using
''Valleyspeak'' terms like ''gag me with a spoon'' and ''tubular.'' 

Francis Vincent Zappa Jr., the oldest of four children in a Greek- Sicilian
household, was born Dec. 21, 1940, in Baltimore, Md. When he was 9 the family
moved to California. 

Zappa began playing in school bands in the early 1950s. By the time he was in
Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, Calif., he was playing guitar in a
band called the Blackouts. 

Zappa got into his share of trouble at school, but it gave him an outlet to
pursue his artistic impulses. For one art project he erased the emulsion from
a 10-minute piece of film, then handpainted each frame individually. 

At 16, the young nonconformist developed ulcers. 

After graduating high school Zappa married his first wife, Kay, and struggled
to support himself writing soundtrack music for films and composing
avant-garde music that no one would perform. He took music theory courses at
several colleges before quitting formal education in disgust. 

For a time, Zappa worked as an art director at a greeting card firm while
playing in cocktail lounge show bands at night. 

In 1963 Zappa received royalties from a film score he wrote years earlier and
used the money to buy a good electric guitar and open his own recording studio,
Studio Z, in Cucamonga. He spent days experimenting with his own recordings
while playing bars at night in a band called the Muthers. 

Studio Z folded after Zappa made a 10-minute porno film for a used car
salesman who turned out to be an undercover policeman. Zappa was arrested,
served 10 days in jail and was on probation for three years. 

The stage was set for Zappa to take on everything he felt was phony and
corrupt about American society. He moved to Los Angeles and formed the Mothers
of Invention, which became a kind of ad hoc house band for a growing society
of post-beat, pre-hippie noncomformists who Zappa dubbed ''United Mutations.'' 

Zappa has sparred in public debate with Tipper Gore, wife of Vice President
Albert Gore and co-chairman of the Parents Music Resource Center, a lobbying
group intent on policing the lyric content of popular music by rating records. 

It was after the record industry complied with the PMRC's request for ratings
on rock records that Zappa started a one-man lobby to protect his free
expression. 

''Once all that stuff started happening anybody stating the case at all. I
have the right to state my side of the case as an independent guy.'' 

In his statement to a congressional committee on rock lyrics chaired by Gore,
Zappa claimed that the ratings system was a violation of his constitutional
rights and that its focus on only rock records was a protectionist strategy by
Gore to favor the country music made in his home state of Tennessee. 

Zappa's image changed subtly as he grew older. His lampoons had often been
accurate enough to outlive the subjects they skewered, and his seemingly
tireless ability to speak out eloquently in defense of artistic freedom added
an almost statesmanlike quality to his speech. 

Zappa was sought out as a public speaker after his Senate testimony, giving a
keynote addresstempting to retrieve contributions made by PTL members to Jim
and Tammy Bakker. 

''Since 1985 I'm probably more famous for having Slade Gorton tell me I didn't
know anything about the First Amendment than for any song I ever wrote. It may
even come as a surprise to people that I play the guitar.'' 

Zappa saw the Soviet Union as an especially ripe market and made numerous
business trips there in recent years. He took a commission for arranging for
amber from the Soviet Union to be sent to a U.S. company for jewelry. He even
ventured into journalism with ''Frank Zappa's Wild Wild East,'' a series of
interviews he conducted during a trip to Eastern Europe and aired on Financial
News Network. 

''I don't have anything against making a profit,'' he told the Los Angeles
Times. 

    funny, that article didn't mention anything abiut the early "mutations"
    and their type of music being refered to by the record industry as 
    "Da-Da ism"
    
    
    or how Frank HATED the toilet shot of himself....I found Frank to be a
    genuis, even if he did contradict himslef often between his songs and
    his spoken word. 
    rfb

re:                     <<< Note 156.317 by CXDOCS::BARNES >>>

>	....I found Frank to be a
>    genuis, even if he did contradict himslef often between his songs and
>    his spoken word. 

	Yeah, it's tough to explain to people that the man was a musical
	genius with comical songs like Yellow Snow, or stuff like Valley Girl
	or even the lesser known Why Does It Hurt When I Pee? ;-)

	His instrumental works, like Waka Jawaka/Hot Rats, or the Grand Wazoo,
	or Sleep Dirt, are so totally different from the stuff most people
	know (knew :-/) him by.   Listening to Sleep Dirt and Studio Tan,
	among a lot of Zappa since the news, made me glad these "unauthorized
	releases" were made available (against his wishes).  

	What did it for me wrt Zappa was _the music_.  The attitude was just
	icing on the cake ;-)   

	I'm so glad to have seen him a couple of times.  Once at Springfield
	in the late 70's, and once in Providence in '81-'82 timeframe.  I wish
	there were more, but it's too late for that now.

	His music lives on.

	Ken

    
     I only saw FZ in 83....at E.M. LOEWs in Worcester, two shows in 
    one night. Two totally different shows....he said "you Zappa freaks
    should stick around for the late show", I guess he meant it cuz' I
    knew alot of songs during the 1st show, but didn't know any of the
    2nd show, with the exception of the "Whipping Post" encore.
    
    Sean

    I first heard a Frank Zappa song only a few days ago.  He got virtually
    no radio airplay, I guess.  How did you all get turned onto him?
    
    Jamie

    re: -.1
    
    Same way we got turned on to the Dead.
    
    Bud

	How'd I get turned onto Zappa ?  I think I bought Apostrophe
	first, for Cosmic Debris and/or Yellow Snow or something, which
	I'd heard on the radio.  A college friend played One Size Fits All,
	or Sofa, one of those, which I also liked, which influenced me.
	The 2nd album I bought was probably Waka Jawaka/Hot Rats, once 
	I heard that, I was totally hooked.   Very different style from
	the above.  And that was it!   Must have at least 20 albums, and
	there's tons more I'd like to get.

	/Ken

    
    I got turned on to Zappa in High School.  Saw him at the old Boston
    Music Hall (Wang Center) in 77'ish. Excellent show.  I think Stanley
    Clark played bass that night.  It was an incredible night of music, the
    kind of show you walk out of and say Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!
    
    	Mark

I was rummaging through a record store when I was, oh, round about a
sophomore in high school, and I pulled out a copy of Overnite Sensation,
noticed a little bent over character with a corn cob being rammed up his
ass, and immediately bought it. I think it was in the "New Releases" bin. 

    The Orig Molthers of Invention Album and 200 motels turned me on to FZ.....
    
    
    The Shut Up series is f$cking excellent!!!

    I was never a big fan of Zappa: I heard all his "Yellow snow/Valley
    girl" stuff from the radio.  Then I heard a few cuts from "Hot Rats".  
    WOW!!  That some great music!
    
    dave

Reported in MUSIC notes:

One of the members of the Gin Blossoms (a new band with a new album and a hit
called "Hey Jealousy") committed suicide with a gunshot.  He had been
despondent and was hospitalized for an attempted suicide 2 months ago.

What a damper on the band's newfound success.

adam

    	FIRED GUITARIST KILLS HIMSELF
    
    (AP)
    	Tempe, Ariz. - Douglas Hopkins, who was fired as lead guitarist
    for the up-and-coming rock band, Gin Blossoms, shot himself to death.
    He was 32.
    
    	Hopkins, whose songs and flamboyant playing appear on the band's
    album "New Miserable Experience" was found in his home Sunday, said
    police spokesman Juan Perez. Worried friends went to the home because
    thay had not seen him for a few days, Perez said.
    
    	Hopkins wrote the Gin Blossoms biggest hit "Hey Jealousy" as well
    as "Found out about you" which ranks number 5 on the current Billboard
    magazine modern rock tracks chart.
    
    	But Hopkins was fired from the group in April 1992 because fellow
    band members said his drinking hindered his performance at recording 
    sessions for the album.

    more thoughts on FZ....
    
    I remeber when Frank told Ruth Underwood (plays vibes) during her solo
    "Come for us Ruth!"
    
    The next year, when a young lady wouldn't get up on stage at his
    invitation during the Valley Girl song, after the song he suggested she
    was a little up tight and should go home and perform some self-therapy
    using the faucet in the bathtub....I didn't see that show but all my
    buds did. 
    
    My very first car (71 datsun Pick up truck) was named "the pygmy pony"
    
    JC, I bet you can relate to "The Slime Ozzin out of your TV set"
    
    

    Sigh, here I am, sitting at a terminal farm at the back of the DECUS
    exhibit and scanning through GRATEFUL, and this is the first I've
    heard about Frank.  Sigh....  Hot Rats may have been the first 
    album of his I had, and the inimitable Peaches en Regalia.  Though
    Little Umbrellas has now replaced it in my heart. Frank was certianly
    more well known or at least received more airplay back in the 70's, and 
    that's where I my tastes jelled.  We'll miss you, BIlly and me.....
    
    PeterT
    

Well I might as well say I'm a big Zap fan too.  The first one I had was
Mothers of Invention Live at the Fillmore (on 8 track no less).  That 
was when the Mothers had Mark Volman from Turtles fame in the band.  

Remember the HIT RECORD!  The one that FLIES STRAIGHT UP THE CHARTS?
The one with the
			B-U-L-L-E-T?

Or possibly you remember the Donkey with the electric cooled pony harness?

I'll stop with that since this is a family notes file.

I'll miss him!
bob

>The one with the
>			B-U-L-L-E-T?


That was Fillmore East Live June 1971.

   it has been suggested on alt.fan.frank-zappa, that on uncle franks
   birthday people over the world syncronise playing  "watermelon in
   easter hay" on joe's garage, act iii. that would be tuesday, december
   21 at 1800 gmt.

   fyi, zappa once was on 'desert island disk' and played the above as his
   number one recording to take with him ;-)

    
    RE: .330
    >exhibit and scanning through GRATEFUL, and this is the first I've
    >heard about Frank.
    In addition to the warning 'beware of events for which new clothing is
    needed', I'd say 'beware of events in which you don't hear important
    stuff like this until_two_days_later'.  that last one is a carol_ism
    
    

    Sad to hear Frank is gone.  In one of the newspaper reports he is
    mentioned as saying 'Dangerous Kitchen' and 'The Jazz Discharge Party'
    are his favourites.  Does any one know which album the latter appears
    in?  Dangerous Kitchen is on The Man from Utopia and the words are
    hilarious.
    
    -Dermot

    
   Linda Ellerbee's column today...
   
   THE DEATH OF A PATRIOT
   
   Some nights we hadn't been off the air two minutes when the phone on the
   set would ring.  Some nights I would imagine I could tell which ring was
   his.  It was louder, more insistent, a ring that demanded an answer, or so
   I imagined at the time.  However, when _NBC News Overnight_ went off the
   air, it was 2:30 in the morning; I was not at my best.  Not ready for
   mental gymnastics.  Not ready to DEFEND the night's news.  But there it
   was.  The ring.  HIS ring.  I pick up the phone.
   
   "Ellerbee?  Zappa."
   
   We weren't pals; I never even met the man, but for a while in the early and
   middle 80's, Frank Zappa and I had this irregular phone thing going.  Of
   course I thought about those phone calls when I heard that Francis Vincent
   Zappa Jr., social critic, reluctant rock star, world-class composer, guitar
   virtuoso, production wizard and just about the only human ever to take on
   Tipper Gore in public, had died--or, as the family said in its statement,
   "left for his final tour."
   
   The man was a gift.  OK, a real weird gift.  But still, his music did what
   Aristotle said good music should do:  it defied description and demanded to
   be heard.
   
   Then there were the words.  It tells you a lot that today, when a local
   radio station asked people to call in requests for their favorite Zappa
   songs, most of the stuff people wanted to hear couldn't, for reasons of
   taste, be played on the air.
   
   Still.
   
   How pleasant that Frank Zappa's words have not lost their power to offend. 
   Because it is the man's words we will remember longest.  Not the music. 
   The words.  What Frank Zappa had to say was important, and his death makes
   me sad for those of us who believe it is the duty of every citizen to keep
   his mouth open.  You see, Frank Zappa was a patriot.  A real American
   patriot.
   
   Zappa questioned journalists with the same fervor he questioned
   politicians, and he couldn't understand why most journalists didn't seem as
   passionate about the First Amendment as he was (I still don't have a good
   answer for that one), or why every American didn't realize that ALL
   censorship, especially well-intentioned censorship, was a form of tyranny.
   
   He also may have been the most intense person I ever had a conversation
   with.  Zappa wouldn't let go of an idea--or a person, if he thought she
   were being, say, less than honest intellectually.  Once, when I reported on
   television about something or another that President Reagan had said, Zappa
   called, wanting to know where Reagan got HIS facts, and why I, as a
   journalist, was prepared to believe ANYTHING that came out of Ronald
   Reagan's mouth in the first place?  Had I no knowledge of history?  (Zappa
   was always willing to give me some of his.)
   
   One other thing.  Zappa made you laugh.  Now quick.  Name another rock star
   who did that.  A deadly serious man, he was funny about his politics,
   industrial-strength acerbic, sort of like Bob Dole might be if he were
   twice as smart, and had a heart.
   
   In 1985, when Tipper Gore tried to censor, or at least restrict access to,
   music with raunchy lyrics, Zappa, in testimony before a congressional
   panel, ridiculed Gore's assertion that lyrics could promote deviant
   behavior.  "I wrote a song about dental floss--but did anyone's teeth get
   cleaner?" he asked her.
   
   Ahead of the pack, back in the year 1966, when "The '60s" were not yet a
   matter of smarmy commercialism, much less a thing of ridiculous nostalgia,
   Frank Zappa broke up his band, and when they asked him why, he said he was
   tired of playing for people who clapped for all the wrong reasons.
   
   And so it goes.
   

    It will be noted in the history of the fall of America's Manufacturing 
    capabilties that we didn't pay near enough attention to the Vision of
    Quality and the wisdom of this dear man.... 
    
    
    Dr. W. Edwards Deming died of cancer early yesterday at his home in 
    Washington.  He was 93.
    
    
    
                        Dr. Deming at U. Mass. Amherst
                        ==============================
    
    
    
    ***********************************************************************
    
    On April 22, 1992, Dr. Deming was a guess speaker at the University of 
    Massachusetts at Amherst. There were a number of Digital employees in 
    attendance, and some of them took notes. The following is a summary of 
    the notes from one of our employees. 
    
    NOTE: In trying to identify the actual author -- some of the 
    distribution listings had been deleted on the copy that I received -- I 
    found employees that had forwarded the memo to others, but I was unable 
    to locate the author. So, here are our thanks to the Digital employee 
    that took the notes and wrote the original memo.
    
    The following is the employee notes as written in the original memo.
    
    ***********************************************************************
    
    "The session was at the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, standing room 
    only, over 2500 people. After standing in a line that went for several 
    blocks I found out that Digital had a reserved section down front. The 
    session was sponsored by Digital and attendance was free. I found a 
    seat in the sixth row and proceeded to get my tape recorder ready. The 
    sound system, that close, wasn't great and I found out afterwards that 
    the tape was barley audible. Dr. Deming, 92 years old, was brought out 
    on stage in a wheel chair. There was a podium, table with overhead 
    projector, his slides, and a portable screen. He slowly walked to the 
    table from his wheel chair and proceeded to get his slides in order 
    with the help of an assistant who he introduced as Dr. ..., I didn't 
    hear her name. His speech was slightly muted. When he started speaking 
    he stood and remained standing for about 10 minutes and then sat 
    through the rest of the session.

    "His slides weren't readable from where I sat and when he put the first 
    one up the audience laughed, but he continued to use them. The audience 
    became intensely quite. He also wrote on movable overhead material with 
    rock solid handwriting. He took hand written questions from his 
    assistant. His answers were quick, to the point, and even contained 
    humor. He started speaking at about 7:05 P.M. and went until about 
    9:10. At the end of the session he autographed copies of a book that 
    was for sale at the entrance. .... I found out from one of the students 
    that some of them had a personal session with Dr. Deming that 
    afternoon. ...
    
    "Before I get into the specifics of what he presented I'd like to share 
    some of my thoughts, feelings, and conclusions. I felt there was a real 
    sense of regard from the audience for Dr. Deming. Some of the questions 
    asked for more clarity or detail on what he had said while others 
    hinted of a different opinion, but the tone was respectful. Afterwards 
    I overheard some people saying that they didn't necessarily agree with 
    a particular point, but they appreciated having the opportunity to hear 
    him speak in person and to listen to what he had to say. The path to 
    excellence for him was clear and simple and he appeared irritated with 
    questions that hinted of not understanding his message. His mind was 
    dynamic while his body was slowing down.
    
    "It was apparent I was observing a person who has a vision, i.e. 
    something significant yet to accomplish, and at 92 years of age with an 
    impressive list of achievements, was still very committed to his 
    mission. For me, this was the significant learning of the evening, and 
    I left with a personal question. How could I become this committed, how 
    can I make a difference?
   
   "The following is a partial list of his key points:
   
     	. People are important.
   
     	. Ranking people introduced conflict.
   
   	. Abolish conflict.
   
   	. Pay for performance can't be measured.
   
   	. The key is intrinsic motivation and the joy of learning.
   
   	. Extrinsic motivation replaces self esteem.
   
   	. Abolish metric systems and gold stars.
   
   	. You cannot measure individual performance.
   

   
   	. The system must be managed, it wont manage itself.
   
   	. The secret is cooperation not competition.
   
   	. Use work flow diagrams, not organization charts. Work flow 
   	  diagrams tell people what their job is.
   
   	. Always use theory. Without theory there's no question to ask,    
   	  without questions there's no learning.
   	
   	. Theory enables us to get a view, to understand.
   
   	. Without theory people just work harder, in the prison they're 
   	  in.	
   
   	. To learn, one must listen and build long term relationships of 
   	  loyalty and trust.
   
   	. The key is optimization of the system. The system must take into 
   	  account the future as well as what business you're in.
   
   	. Why is a company less than the sum of it's parts? Because of 
   	  negative interaction and competition. Competition means loss.    
   	  Focus on positive interaction and cooperation.
   
   	. Competition is not human nature.
   
   	. Cooperation solves problems, competition creates failures.
   
   	. How do we get management to listen? Good question?
   
   	. No substitute for knowledge.
   
   	. In Tokyo there are 200 companies working together, making sure 
   	  none go out of business. In the U.S. we have competition. Who do 
   	  you think will be ahead?
   
   	. Learn from the right sources.
   
   	. In Japan, I taught systems and cooperation.
   
   	. The boundary of the system is all Japan.
   
   	. The key is all elements of the system cooperating and working 
   	  together. Local optimization destroys the system.

   
   	. In the U.S., raising the cost of one element would not be 	  
   	  accepted, even if the total system would be less.
   
   	. How do you get knowledge? It comes from Theory, from outside,    
   	  and it doesn't come knocking at your door.
   
   	. Only trivial problems can be solved by numbers. Significant 
   	  problems are solved by Theory.
   
   	. Would you wish to do business with a loser? No!! Strive for win 
   	  win. There are only two choices, all win or all lose.
   
   	. Have responsibility to yourself, then you have learning.
   
   	. Monopoly is far better than competition. Create cooperation not 
   	  competition.
   
   	. Ask why. Self empowered teams -- doing what? Management must be 
   	  involved and manage the system and not transfer all 	  
   	  responsibility to the teams."
   
   	. "No Substitute For Knowledge" !!!!!!!!
   
   	. "Can We Learn Of Course We Can."
   
   
   _______________________________________________________________________
   _______________________________________________________________________
   
   


    ======================================================================
   
   PART-I of II
   
                           DEMING SEMINAR
                          FEB 17-21, 1992
                          ---------------
   
    
        "These are my notes from attending a seminar led by the
   legendary Quality guru, Dr. W. Edward Deming. 
   
        "There were about 600 people there including
   representatives from: AT&T, Eastman Kodak, Exxon, GE, IBM, &
   Merck. The session was sponsored by the Philadelphia Area
   Council for Excellence (PACE) which is part of the
   Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. PACE's mission is for the
   Delaware Valley to have world-renowned business success
   through the teachings of Dr. Deming. PACE consists of
   hundreds of organizations throughout the Delaware Valley area
   including Hercules and ICI; Dupont is not a member.  The
   seminar was the 10th that PACE has sponsored featuring Dr.
   Deming.
    
        "Key learnings from the seminar were:
    
        * Although Dr. Deming is noted for Quality and
   statistical process control, his central message is that we
   must transform our approach to management of our businesses
   in order to compete in the world.
   
        * One must think of a business as a system. Following is
   a simple model of key parts of a business system:
    
    
    
       F <--------F <----------F <------------F <------------ F
       !         /\ !         /\ !           /\ !             !
       !          ! !          ! !            ! !             !
       !          ! !          ! !            ! !             !
       V          ! V          ! V            ! V             !
       A ---------> B ---------> C -----------> D ----------> E
    
    
   WHERE:
     A: Suppliers
     B: Production
     C: Sales
     D: Distribution
     E: Customers
     F: Feedback to all parts of the system
    
   

        "The point is that all people in a system must think of
   themselves as within a system since they can't realistically
   isolate themselves from the system. The Aim (Purpose) of
   the system and everyone in the system should be to work
   together to optimize the system as a whole. That way everyone
   wins.
    
        * The key to improving a system is the method. It is
   better to focus on a method of improvement rather than goals,
   objectives or results. The numbers can be manipulated
   especially in an environment of fear. He recommends companies
   eliminate the MBO approach to management. A key question to
   ask about improvement is: "By what method?"
    
        * Deming recommends companies work to drive our fear.
   Fear inhibits innovation and productivity.
    
        * We must stop management tampering with the system.
   Usually this is caused by lack of understanding of the
   difference between special cause and common cause. This
   results in management taking inappropriate action which
   causes waste and lower productivity which is exactly the
   opposite of what they hope to accomplish.
   
   
        * Deming recommends that organizations become learning
   organizations. We should create a "yearning for learning."
   There is no substitute for knowledge.
    
        * Deming recommends we create a constancy of purpose. We
   need to stop short-term thinking and short term programs.
   There is no instant pudding! We need a long-term commitment.
    
        * We need LEADERSHIP not management or supervision to
   accomplish the transformation. We need leaders that listen to
   and serve the people.
    
        * America is being ruined by "best efforts." Everyone
   doing their best is not enough! The key is to work together
   to improve the system as a whole. Deming conducted the famous
   "Red bead experiment" where willing workers doing their best
   produced red beads (defects) even though they were not
   wanted.  Deming's point is that we should not punish the
   people for only doing their best; they can only produce what
   the system will deliver. We must focus efforts on improving
   the system.
    
        * There is a natural distribution of capabilities &
   contributions of people in a business system. The key is to
   enhance and develop everyone and not destroy the will of
   people to contribute to improvement of the system as a whole.
    

        * Dr. Deming strongly recommends eliminating performance
   ratings and rankings of individual people. He mentioned it
   dozens of times during the session. He directed people to go
   back to their work places and eliminate performance ratings
   Monday Morning! Some of the key reasons discussed in the
   seminar were:
    
          - Ratings foster competition within the system.
    
          - Ratings inhibit teamwork (limit interdependence and
            cooperation).
    
          - Ratings foster mediocrity. People tend to set safe
            goals they can easily meet.
   
          - Ratings increase variability since they represent
            what Dr. Deming calls management tampering with the
            system.
    
          - Ratings cause focus on the short-term. Why try to
            develop something for the long-term health of the
            business if one is rated on annual objectives?
    
          - Ratings tend to destroy intrinsic motivation (joy
            and pride in work).
    
          - One cannot separate people from the system. What we
            might really be rating is the results of the system
            and the "style" of the person. Dr. Deming says
            that since people work within a system, only 3% of
            the perceived performance is due to the people and
            97% is due to the system!
    
          - Ratings inhibit risk-taking and innovation. People
            are afraid to admit mistakes especially to their
            bosses.
    
          - Ratings tend to destroy self-esteem.
    
          - Ratings cause focus on pleasing the boss vs.
            pleasing the customer.
    
          - Ratings foster sub-optimization. This means that
            people are not focused on the purpose of
            optimizing the system as a whole. Individuals are
            more worried about "What's in it for me?"
    
          - Ratings focus on goals and objectives without
            consideration of "By what method?"
    
          - Ratings tend to reward style not true contribution.
    
          - An individual's "performance" really can't be
            measured.

    
          - Ratings tend to focus on quantity not Quality.
    
          - Ratings destroy morale and joy in work.
    
          - Judging people does not help them do a better job.
    
          - Ranking people is a FARCE. Apparent "performance" is
            actually attributable mostly to the system not to
            the individual.
    
          - Ratings don't focus on improving the system.
    
          - Having workers doing their best is not good enough
            for business success.
    
          - The ratings system punishes people; it creates
            winners and losers.
    
          - Ratings instill fear in people (carrot & stick
            approach to motivating people).
    
          - Ratings cause people to deny their true needs
            for personal growth; they don't want to admit
            weaknesses.
    
          - Ratings destroy trust between people and managers.
    
          - Ratings cause bosses to be judges rather than
            coaches and counselors.
    
          - Ratings causes bosses to talk more than they listen
            to their people because of the power inequity.
    
          - Ratings become a label that sticks with the employee
            and limits growth and development. Top rated people
            don't feel like they need to improve.
    
          - Ratings cause humiliation of people who don't get a
            top rating. It causes destruction of the will to
            contribute.
    
          - Bosses don't really know what people do and
            accomplish even though they argue that they do!
    
          - There is a lack of feedback from others in other
            parts of the system as to an individual's true
            contribution; note those others might be outside the
            company.
    
          - Employees get blamed for faults of the system.
    
          - You really can't measure the contribution of an
            individual within a system."
   _________________________________________________________________________
   _________________________________________________________________________

    
    ======================================================================
   PART-II
   
   
                           DEMING SEMINAR
                          FEB 17-21, 1992
                          ---------------
   
   
        * Dr. Deming held up for public ridicule the recently
   announced approach of IBM with forced-ranking of its people
   and dismissal of the lowest ranked people! It sounds like the
   early warning signal of the demise of IBM a once leading
   people-oriented company.
    
        * An American Cyanamid representative mentioned that
   their R&D organization plans to eliminate performance ratings
   for the Chemicals organization. The key contact was not
   present so I plan to follow up.
    
        * Representatives of many other organizations mentioned
   privately considerable resistance with eliminating
   performance ratings in their companies. The key seems to be
   management's unwillingness to give up something they feel is
   vital. Dr. Deming really challenged their thinking.
    
        * Dr. Deming is also opposed to incentive pay for sales
   people. Many of the reasons are similar to what is discussed
   above but include:
    
          - Sales people work in a system; they don't work in a
            vacuum. It's unfair and arrogant to only reward
            sales people with extra pay.  Many other people
            contribute to the sales but are excluded. This
            causes anger of the others and does not work towards
            optimization of the system as a whole. The notion of
            "pay at risk" for the sales people is not an answer
            to the dilemma; sales incentives for sales people is
            a divisive program!
   

          - Sales incentives may cause the wrong behaviors on
            part of the sales personnel, eg: they might oversell
            a low profit item just to boost sales. Any attempt
            to design around this can be beaten by the sales
            people. After all they are clever, hard-working
            people!
    
          - Sales incentives can't truly measure contribution
            to the system as a whole, eg: mentoring, developing
            future markets, etc.
    
          - Sales incentives tend to cause sub-optimization.
    
          - Sales incentives foster internal competition and
            interfere with "Doing the right thing."
    
          - Sales incentives create expectations and once
            achieved may create negative feelings if managed
            in what is perceived as an arbitrary way.
    
          - Sales incentives lose incentive over time and can
            demotivate.
    
          - Money tends to be the value system in business. It's
            a poor replacement for emotional valuing that people
            need so much.
    
          - Managers claim that sales incentives measure the
            performance of individuals but they're really
            measuring the result of the system in which the
            individuals work.
    
          - Sales incentives bring out the worst in people. They
            create a short-sighted, selfish behavior focused on:
            "What's in it for me?"
    
        * Deming recommends that profits of the business be
   	  shared equitably with all people in the business.
    
        * He recommended that in a business downturn we take
   	  action in the following order:
    
          1. Reduce dividends.
          2. Reduce bonuses of top management.
          3. Reduce management salaries starting from the top
             down to the middle of the hierarchy.
          4. Workers are asked to accept pay cuts or a reduction
             in force through attrition or voluntary discharge.
   

    
        "My personal recommendation to anyone reading this is to
   try to attend a Deming seminar as soon as you can. Dr. Deming
   has tremendous wisdom to impart focused on what will make
   business successful. Since he is 91, he won't be with us for
   long. He has an amazing schedule of 18 seminars left in 1992;
    
        "Further, I came away more convinced more than ever that
   eliminating performance ratings is an important part of
   Dupont achieving its vision of becoming a GREAT GLOBAL
   COMPANY THROUGH PEOPLE."
   _________________________________________________________________________
   _________________________________________________________________________

  Don't know the specifics just sumptin i heard but...

   The  orignal JOKER, Ceasar Romero (sp?) died Sunday. 8-(

 Anyone know the details?


 Shawn

    Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, 81
    
    Virgina Kelly (Bill Clinton's Mother)

    
    when did Virginia Kelly die?  I heard about Tip last night but no
    mention of the President's mom.  Did that just happen?  
    
    

    I heard the Prez got a call at 2:30 this morning.
    
    I'm gonna miss Tip.  He's been a hero to me for most of my adult life.
    A true liberal who never made any apologies for it, even when it could
    have meant political death.  If I was a politician, I'd model myself
    after him.  (I recommend his book "Man of the House" I think was the
    title.  It's funny, witty, insightful, and if you like Tip, you'll
    learn something about him, too.)

David Stone, x-VP of Software Engineering, died last night.
don't know the cause.

he was a young man.

    David has been battling cancer for some time now.  I imagine
    that is what caused his death but the mail I received this
    morning said only that he had died.
    
    I met David and his wife a couple of years ago when they sat
    at our table for an anniversery dinner event (he was the 
    guest speaker) and had the opportunity to speak with him about
    both work and non-work related subjects.  Nice guy, very down
    to earth.  I was sad to see him leave Digital and sadder still
    to hear this news.
    
    Robyn

    
    Yes, he had brain cancer, I'm sure that was it.
    
    

    Harry Nillson, age 52, on Saturday, Jan. 15.  Never fully recovered
    from problems after heart attack last February.
    
    He just finished an album last Wednesday.

    heard about Harry, but didn't know he had had a heart attack recently. 
    I DO know the man partyed HARD! during alot of his life...
    
    The Point will always have a special place in my heart.
    
    rfb

    ...and the immortal:
    
    "You're breaking my heart
     you're tearing me apart,
     so f*ck you!"
    
    Ya gotta love the guy...
    
    tim
    

>>    The Point will always have a special place in my heart.
    
  I love The Point.

   I sat down with my oldest son (4yrs) on afternoon to watch it. 
  When it was over, just to see what he would say i asked him what 
  the moral of the story was. After I explained what a  moral is, he
  thought about for a moment and said 
	"It doesn't matter if someone *looks* differrent your still the 
	same as everyone else."


  Could there be hope for future generations afterall?


 Shawn

Telly Savalas, age 70, of cancer. Time to give up tooties pops I guess

    we must ALL keep da faith, Shawn....yer son's a smart one!!!!
    
    
    rfb

re:                     <<< Note 156.350 by CXDOCS::BARNES >>>

   >> we must ALL keep da faith, Shawn....yer son's a smart one!!!!
    
    That we must..

  Unfortunatly sometimes he smarta$$ as well 8-)


 Shawn

stretching it a bit but.....

Really Dead --->

Buffalo in the 2nd half.

bob

    
    you said it.  I actually thought we were gonna get a game this time -
    the first half was good.  
    

    I actually thought I'd get away without hearing about it.
    

    I decided to tune in during the 2nd half.  AS Arnold says:  BIG
    MISTAKE.
    
    dave

Sherm Feller - long time PA announcer for the Boston Red Sox, died Friday

    
        it's gonna be weird going back to fenway and not hearing ol'
      sherm on the PA. 8^(
    
    

	I am very sorry to hear that!

	Yeah, he was kind of a Fenway classic.

	I'll miss that echo too!

	"Up at Bat bat bat bat bat....Carl Yestremski ski ski ski ski....."	

    barnes the insomniac here...picked up an old paper while drinkin my
    morning cup and found..
    
    
    Pierre Boulle (81) died 2-1-94, wrote "Bridge over the River Kwai", based on
    experiances he had while a slave laboror during WWII, AND wrote PLANET
    OF THE APES!!!!
    
    American Computor Company exec John Cleaver and his wife and 2 deck
    hands found bound and gagged and stabbed to death on a yacht owned by
    Ogden Computor Company of England off the coast of Barbuda. 
    
    8 Somalis killed by MArines....
    
    sigh.....

> American Computor Company exec John Cleaver and his wife and 2 deck hands
> found bound and gagged and stabbed to death on a yacht owned by Ogden
> Computor Company of England off the coast of Barbuda. 
  

<shudders>

- jeff_who_read_Clear_And_Present_Danger

    Isn't today the anniversary of the plane crash that killed Richie
    Valens, the Big Bopper and Buddy Holly? It really was as Don Maclean
    sang, "The day the music died".
    
    chris

>    Isn't today the anniversary of the plane crash

yes

/rich

    :-( :-(
    
    
              LOS ANGELES (AP) _ ``Papa'' John Creach, a classically trained
   violinist who became a rock star with the Jefferson Airplane after
   decades playing pop, jazz and blues, has died. He was 76.
              Creach died of natural causes on Tuesday at Midway Hospital,
   where he had been undergoing treatment for heart and respiratory
   problems, his friend Michael Gaiman said.
              Last year, the Memphis-based Blues Foundation presented him with
   its W.C. Handy Award as an outstanding blues musician.
              Creach spent decades on the cocktail lounge circuit and even
   played aboard a tour boat to Catalina before the San
   Francisco-based rock band discovered him.
              To the long-haired youths, the white-haired man in his 50s was
   ``Papa,'' and the name stuck.
              ``I never had no problems fitting in with the Plane's style; I
   just listened to their albums and figured it out,'' Creach once
   said.
              ``My motto is, if you're going to do a cha-cha, do a good
   cha-cha. If you want to play rock, rock good. All you have to do is
   get that feeling.''
              Creach was a strong influence on the group, both musically and
   personally, said Paul Kantner, a founding member of Jefferson
   Airplane.
              ``Papa John taught us all things we'll remember well into the
   next century,'' Kantner said Tuesday.
              ``I hope his friends and fans think about what Papa John added
   to their lives and go out and add some of that to other people's
   lives,'' he said.
              For the past two years, Creach toured with Jefferson Starship,
   successor band to the Airplane. Although hobbled by arthritis, he
   was still able to bring audiences to their feet with soulful riffs
   on his electric violin.
              ``When he was not performing it was hard for him to sit around.
   One of his legs was nearly paralyzed,'' Gaiman said. ``But when
   he'd get up on a stage, you could see the years melt away. He was
   so animated.''
              In 1992, Creach recorded ``Papa Blues,'' his first CD and his
   first all-blues set with the Bernie Pearl Blues Band.
              Creach was born in Beaver Falls, Pa., in 1917 and took up violin
   at age 10. At 18 he moved with his family to Chicago, where he
   received some classical training and was briefly affiliated with
   the Illinois Symphony Orchestra.
              In the 1930s he formed the group ``The Chocolate Music Bars,''
   playing jazz, blues and popular music throughout the United States
   and Canada.
              Creach settled in Los Angeles in 1945, playing on a shipboard
   band between Los Angeles and Santa Catalina Island and later
   forming the Johnny Creach Trio. A friend introduced Creach to
   members of Jefferson Airplane in 1970.
              Creach was with the band until its 1972 breakup and then played
   with Airplane members in the group Hot Tuna.
   

    saw papa John with Starship in 1975 truely a wonderful musician that
    added a sh*tload to the airplanes/starships styles....
    "summer of 75, all the world's gonna come alive..."
    
    rfb

Well, I'm gonna go home and put on Burgers...

I saw him with the reformed Jefferson Starship a couple of years ago ... it
really is true, he seemed barely able to walk until he started playing, then
he'd be energized ....

Well, from what I could tell he seemed to live a very happy life, doing what
he wanted to do.

- DC

I saw him at the Channel about a year or two ago.  I stood in front of him
while he played.  He played a delightful "Summertime" from Porgy & Bess.
I gave him a high-five at the end of the show.  Definately memorable.

Jim

    Dinah Shore 76 years old, cancer. 
    

    Just heard John Candy died while filming in Mexico.  
    :-(
    
    Also hear somebody from the group Nirvana is working on it.  He is in 
    a coma from an OD of barbituates and champaign. :-(
    
    Scott

    
    >>Just heard John Candy died while filming in Mexico.
    
    REALLY?!?!?! One of the best (IMO). That's a shame....
    

    re: John Candy
    
    Wow!  Has he been sick? :(
    

    Yeah, the movie "Stripes" just wouldn't have been the same if he wasn't
    the one mud wrestling with four women in the nightclub..
    sad sad day
    
    chris

    oh no....last week I saw something on Entertainment tonight about the
    filming of this movie....it is very hot there....Richard Lewis was
    having trouble with the heat, Ican just imagine John was over heating.
    
    
    peace Uncle Buck

  
  It was a heart attack, probably a combination of the heat and his weight.

   8-(

  
   "Do ya know a hachet is Gnat?"



 

No drugs were found in his system (as if we had to even check that).  He
weighed 330 pounds, I think that did it.

adam

re:  <<< Note 156.375 by QUIVER::SIEGEL "The revolution wil not be televised" >>>

>>No drugs were found in his system (as if we had to even check that).  He


  Yea, someone made a comment to me about cocaine. I said I doubt it. 
 He seemed liked someone that was always high "On Life". 


Shawn
 

    Louis Grizzard, author and humorist, died this past weekend frm
    complications following his 4th major heart attack. He was 47.
    Among his books were:
    "Corn Dogs Always Bark at Night"
    "When My Love Returns from the Ladies Room, will I be too old to care"
    "Aim low, they're riding shetland ponies"
    "Elvis is Dead and I don't feel too good myself"

    ahhh yes, redneck extrodinaire! My sister, who lives in Augusta
    Georgia, gave me a Grizzard calendar and tape just last summer.
    Sort of a hero in the deep south....at least he wasn't a mean redneck! 
    
    rfb  who spent his early hippie dazes in GA. and needlessstosay had
    several runins with the mean type o redneck but likes the way Grizzard
    poked fun at Yankees (no offense intended to those that consider
    themselves yankees)

    also Bob Thomas, originator of the SYF died not too long ago...anyone
    know of what??? 
    
    rfb

And then there is Walter Lantz, the creator of Woody Woodpecker.  Definitely
and influence on my youth.

PeterT

Heard a thing about Walter Lance on the radio the other day.  At first Mel
Blanc was the voice of Woody but he signed up to do Bugs Bunny and wasn't
allowed to do Woody's voice anymore.  Walter's wife wanted to do Woody
but Walter didn't want her to.  The day came for auditions for Woody's
voice and Walter's wife submitted a sample without her name (the producer or
someone knew it was her's though) and they liked it best...

bob

    Heard on the radio before - Kurt Cobain from Nirvana was found with a
    gunshot wound in the head at his home in Seattle.  Suicide note was
    found with him.
    
    Sad, very sad.
    
    Fredda

Didn't he just recover from an overdose?  Or was that someone else?  
If it was him, I guess he was really trying to go.

The New York Times Science section had a report this week about how suicide
may actually have some genetic basis.  Sounds wierd, but they did show
some evidence.  Haven't read the whole thing yet though.

PeterT

Eugene Ionesco, a week or so ago.  

    Petert
    Kurt Cobain, according to Rolling Stone had "conquered" a heroin 
    addiction which began when he was using the drug to quell a stomach
    or intestinal disorder he had, and yes he did just come out of a coma
    from champagne and sleeping tablets...
    
    chris

    
    re: genetic links to suicide
    
    Kurt Cobain apparently had 3 uncles who committed suicide.  
    

    heard this morning the note Cobain left said he had lost the passion
    for creating music, so he checked himslef out....sad..as my daughter
    said "Sadder still for his little girl".
    
    DON"T EVER LOSE THE PASSION, YA'LL!!!!!!!!
    
    rfb
    
    

    
    re: genetic links to suicide
    
>     Kurt Cobain apparently had 3 uncles who committed suicide.  
    

Alcoholism is hereditary, perhaps even in the same way (both genetic and
environmental?).


- jeff

    
    It probably is similar.  Like, I don't think that everyone who has
    alcoholic parents will definitely become an alcoholic, but I think they
    have a higher propensity for it, and I think it's a gene that causes
    that propensity.  A genetic link that predisposes someone to suffer the
    kind of depression that would lead to suicide is probably similar to
    that.
    
    

re Phyllis    ... Has research actually found evidence of something physical
like a gene?  

- dc dysfunctional psychology buff

    
    Not that I know of, but I think someday they will.
    
    

During the cover of Neil Young's "Out of the Blue, Into the Black" at last 
nights Boston Garden show (a perk of having a wife who works for WFNX), 
they repeated the line "it's better to burn out than it is to rust" a 
number of times. According to my wife the line was in Cobain's suicide 
note.

sad indeed

opps. The "they" in -.1 are Pearl Jam. A good-very good show

What a stupid sentiment, though.  Kurt wasn't rusting, he was a very
unhappy person who needed psychiatric (and medical, it sounds like) help.

	WOW!

	I can't believe P.J. is doing Niel songs!

	I request Harvest Moon!

    I believe they did a "Rockin in the free world" on some mtv
    awards show....musta rubbed off on them
    
    chris

    they toured with Neil and Booker T last year....
    
    I looked back into my vast collection of Rolling Stones and read an
    interview with Curt (dated Jan. 94) in the interview he was saying
    things like why he was so HAPPY and how things were going so GREAT
    and blablabla....the interview was done at the begining of I guess you
    can say thier final tour which end in Paris (where he almost did himself 
    in by mixing drugs with booze)
    
    being on the road must have really draged him down...
    
    Chris

His last overdose (about a month ago) was also a suicide attempt ... there was
a suicide note.

    the line of NY's OOTBAITB which goes like "It's better to burn out,
    than to fade away" was sung "It's *not* better to burn out..."
    
    starting and ending songs were done with no stage lights. which I think
    was done as some sort of remembrance thing for Kurt.
    
    the sound was a bit muffled (at least in sec 109) but they did indeed
    do some *very*hard*rocking*! Most of the songs sounded familiar but I
    don't know the titles, except for Daughter (which is a tad dearer to me
    than any of their other numbers). They did NY's Rocking In The Free
    World which also kicked ass and was familiar with me.
    
    My daughter and her 2 friends very much enjoyed the show and were very
    happy to be there :^) I beleive they knew a few more of the tunze than
    I did tho ;^)
    
    peace,Andy

    
    Hey Andy,
      You daughters lucky to have such a cool Dad to go to shows with. 
    	Mark 

    I think it's a mutual feeling with us :^)  I also noticed quite a few
    other "dads" with young ones in tow. Some rather a bit younger than my
    15 year old, like @ 7ish :^0
    
    Andy

Andy:
	Thanks for entering the correct lyrics. We were in section BB on 
the floor and the sound, although it improved from the start of the show, 
was muddy.

jeff

Is Julio Eglasias dead yet?

    
    welcome back.  :-)
    
    

    Julio isn't, kurt is, and did ya know that Courtney Loves' father was the
    Harrison that wrote the book about the Grateful Dead???

Ellen DeGeneris (sp?) was on David Letterman last night, talking about how
someone said she wanted to buy the bones of Buddy Ebsen, and the guy ain't
even dead yet!

I fear Tricky Dicky will be showing up here soon.  Haven't heard the
afternoon news yet.

PeterT

    
    Most of my relatives on both sides of my family have passed away after
    having strokes.  No heart attacks....almost all strokes, followed by a
    couple weeks in the hospital, then finally succuming to it.  All of
    them were around Nixon's age.  Its just a matter of time for him.
    
    I know what to look forward to if I get to be that old.
    
    Hogan

I'm kinda curious what will happen when T.D. does pass on.

I mean, he's not our most illustrious ex-president, by
any means.  Frankly, I've got a small problem with the
idea of treating the guy with full 'honors'.

'Honor' and Richard M. Nixon in the same sentence just
doesn't sit well with me.

tim

    I hear ya Tim...i'm settin here listening to late nite ABC news..Nixon
    is dead....we used to call him the devil (he told us to turn out the
    lite at Xmas one year, remember?) I hope he's made his peace with his
    maker...course he prob. went thru Billy Grahm to do so, so I don't know
    if it was a valid peace or not....but God rest his soul..ya know he had
    some times in his life were he HAD to know what he was doin was wrong,
    maybe he thought different at those times...maybe he knew all along..
    I guess we'll find out when we leave this plane too...
    
    rfb

    was there no "honour" in Tricky Dicks efforts at making peace and arms
    agreements with China and USSR ???

re: 156.411 

There is honor in that.

But not enough to make up for his 'crimes' against America, IMO.

(Funny that I think this now after last week's discussion... )


- fickle

    Frankly, were it not for my respect for the office itself, I'd be
    outraged at the idea of honoring this man, after what he did to the
    office, the government, and the nation as a whole.  I always thought he
    should have gone to jail.
    
    tim
    

I'd be willing to bet Nixon did nothing worse than every other post-war pres.

He just got caught.  

I think his foreign policy accomplishements deserve honoring -- and in fact,
every succeeding president, Rep or Dem, has sought counsel with him.

my 2c

Glennnnn

    re.414   Glennnnnnn   nail on the head...he got caught "with his pants
    down"...now if that deserves jail, he would have had the cell next to
    "one of our greatest Presidents, JFK"  (who everyone knew he has his
    pants down, but that was pre-Watergate, and the press didn't discuss
    those issues back then)
    
    Nixon also will be remembered for some domestic programs that were very
    good, and still exist... he established the EPA for instance

    I just deleted a long, heated entry about Tricky Dick...suffice to say,
    I can't BELIEVE how we've all been sucked into "what a great guy he
    was..."
    
    re:415
    
    so what criminal activity TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE did JFK propogate??
    besides doin a little gettin high and foolin around??
    
    and boy did that EPA help us with the Exxon Valdez disaster! 

    
    I still think we've seen worse (rep) presidents since Nixon.
    
    Hogan

    
    >I just deleted a long, heated entry about Tricky Dick...suffice to say,
    >I can't BELIEVE how we've all been sucked into "what a great guy he
    >was..."
    
    first of all, I'm not saying what a great guy he was, and I'm not defending
    him...and I don't think this is worth Heated debate...I'll get out of this
    and not foster any healthy disagreeing if it gets heated...I'm a little gun
    shy due to one of my best friends from college, a guy who I love like a
    brother, almost getting violent with me because I didn't vote for who he
    did in the last election....I like debate about politics, but not when it
    gets heated...that's ridiculous to me...and counter-productive

    agree to disagree...but is it worth breaking up a good friendship over a
    political disagreement ??  God, I hope not, I thought America was built on
    healthy debate, and not having to vote for only one candidate

    >re:415
    
    >so what criminal activity TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE did JFK propogate??
    >besides doin a little gettin high and foolin around??
    
    you can't believe how we're all being s*cked into "he's a great guy" but I'm
    also surprised that 20 years later there are still people think that because
    of Watergate, Nixon had NO redeeming qualities, that he should go to jail,
    and that it just isn't possible that he did anything good for this country,
    that he was only involved in criminal activity...

    if nothing else, Watergate made the average citizen aware that our leaders 
    are not always as honest as we think they should be....but that is almost 
    an unspoken rule of politics...look at the ethics investigations that occur 
    semi-regularly...these folks have to "play the game" to get where they are,
    that is politics

    Nixon lied...certainly not cool...he obstructed justice...that is the
    criminal activity we're talking about I believe...I don't know of any
    "criminal activity" that JFK pulled...but I guess I'm over idealistic in
    thinking that the White House shouldn't be used as a place for the President
    to engage in extra-marital affairs...I guess I'm old-fashioned like that,
    I really don't like infidelity   :)

    >and boy did that EPA help us with the Exxon Valdez disaster! 

    huh ???     so, are you saying that was Nixon's fault, or he shouldn't have
    started it in the first place ??  well, if we didn't have it, Woburn would
    be glowing in the dark !!!    :)
    

    Mr. Ostiguy --
    sorry, I've forgotten your first name!  
    
    politics can not be debated
    without a little heat, but you are 100% correct, political debate is
    no excuse for violence or hatred. so I'm sorry if my reply seemed a
    little terse, that's why I deleted my first attempt..even I didn't care
    for it! %^) I can relate to yer being gun shy, I'm sorta the same out
    here in radical_religious_rightland...until i get pissed off. %^)
    
    as for my ref and yer question about the EPA...some factions (ya, I
    know, they are considered the radical_left_eco_nutgroup) say the EPA
    hasn't done enough or it's focus is the easy targets while allowing
    things such as a large chip fab plant to move to Albaturkey and suck
    the water away from the locals whilst taking advatage of the lax New
    Mexican pollution laws. 
    
    anyway, don't back away from debates just cause I'm an asshole!!
    
    
    rfb

    rfb...and since I only know you as rfb  (until I get to Colorado
    someday)  I don't think you're an *ssh*le  or an eco-nut or anything...
    
    I do feel a little better about things now, I sorta held my breath
    waiting for flames coming my way...
    
    you're completely right about the nature of debate regarding politics,
    that is does get heated...I just don't want to turn people off before
    they meet me if I disagree with the general feeling in here...and after
    the episode with my "friend"  I was hesitant to get involved here...
    
    I guess I was just trying to say that  T.D. wasn't a complete crook as
    I thought was being put forth here
    
    I have friends whom I regularly see and often the conversation gets to
    politics (mostly 'cuz Tom and I disagree, and he loves to debate for
    debates sake) and we yell and scream at each other, we think the other
    is hopelessly stuck in fantasy...but we party together, our friendship
    is not based on political belief (wow, I can't stand the thought of
    looking for friends who have to agree with me, I like the diversity of
    varying opinion, belief and experience) and at the end of the night, we
    shake hands or hug, bid peace until next time....and that's where it
    ends...
    
    I'm still a bit mystified by my college buddy's angle on me, but ??!!!!
    
    Wes

    Wes -- whew! gald we setteled that!  %^)
    
    don't fear my flames, they are usually harmless rantings and ravings!!!
    I've said it before, this is THE ONLY notes file where i don't fear
    flames....cause we love each other....
    
    rfb

    >> this is THE ONLY notes file where i don't fear flames....cause we 
    >> love each other....
       
    yup!                                       

As for 'crimes' JFK committed, there was a piece on Nixon, and the things
he did as compared to JFK.  We know the Nixon ones, and we've heard some
of the things JFK did, but the means of their departure from office
definitely put a certain spin on things.

Questionable activities of JFK:

Secret White House tapings.
Wiretapped Martin Luther King.
While in office, had the CIA doing covert activities in other countries,
including assasination atttempts.
Basically got us into Vietnam through helping to replace Vietnamese 
leader (?)

I'm only reporting these as I heard on the radio, so I don't really
have any facts to back them up.  However, JFK being a product of his time,
which covers WWII and the Cold War, I don't have a lot of problem 
believing them.  I still think he was a remarkable president, and did
a number of good things in his all too brief term.  But most people are
built of shades of grey, rather than being all black or white.  And I
also agree with either Glennnn or Wes, who mentioned that there have been
worse republican presidents since Nixon.

PeterT

>And I
>also agree with either Glennnn or Wes, who mentioned that there have been
>worse republican presidents since Nixon.


Yeah, and they're still alive!

;-)

tim

    >Yeah and they're still alive!
    Tim
    the one you are referring to could have starred in "Night of the Living
    Dead" the 8 years he was in office.....
    :^)
    chris
    

    While I was in the DCU this morning, one of the tellers mentioned that
    tomorrow is going to be proclaimed a national holiday after Richard
    Nixon....

RE:  PeterT's list on JFK

you forgot one :)  They (radio) said Chicago's Mayor Daly had some sort
of voting fraud thing in the 60's election that helped JFK get elected.

Bob's Commentary for the week:
	Why does everyone get in an uproar over Ted K's antcis when John 
	and Bobby were the same way yet they hold them in much higher esteem?


bob

         <<< Note 156.426 by TECRUS::DEMARSE "No ego's under water" >>>
>    While I was in the DCU this morning, one of the tellers mentioned that
>    tomorrow is going to be proclaimed a national holiday after Richard
>    Nixon....

YEs it's true but it's really an official day of mourning.  Wall street
even closed - imagine that.

Wonder how much it costs us(USA) to shutdown for the day?
bob

Yes, Wednesday was declared a national day of mourning by Clinton.  All
non-essential government offices are to be closed, as well as the Postal
Service.

adam

re             <<< Note 156.428 by SMURF::HAPGOOD "Java Java HEY!" >>>

>YEs it's true but it's really an official day of mourning.  Wall street
>even closed - imagine that.

if jimmie cahtah died, wall st. wouldn't close 'cuz he ain't a repub!

wow, do we have the day off?

    re: .427
    
    Bob,
    
    You and I would probably be held in high esteem if we had been shot to
    death also.  People just seem to be more sympathetic if you get
    murdered.  Strange.  If Reagan had died in the shooting attempt in
    the early '80s, he'd be a hero today.  I guarantee it.
    
    Bud

Reagan isn't a hero today?  ;^/

    I get a kick out of it when they say "all non-essential government
    offices will be closed". Paul harvey did a column on a similar note one
    time and said that "all non-essential government employees were given
    the day off" and that included some 88%-92% of all gov't employees.
    Sounds like they need a little "right-sizing", huh?

    I think if any of the former Presidents were to die, it would be
    declared a national day of mourning...it's too bad for his family he
    died, but no mail ???   
    
    respect for the office to which he was elected twice I guess...they
    would probably do the same for Ford, Carter, Reagan or Bush
    
    maybe Teddy isn't held in as high esteem because his driving school is
    still open   :)

    re:: declared a national day of mourning...it's too bad for his family he
         died, but no mail ???
    
    	I heard on the radio that they will be delivering mail.... Must
    	be one of the 10% or so of gov. essential jobs ;-)
    		
    						Jim 

    Okay, Okay, so it's a national day of mourning for Tricky Dick.  I'll
    make sure to wear my black underpants in memorium...
    
    :-)
    
    tim
    

    >>Okay, Okay, so it's a national day of mourning for Tricky Dick.
    
    It must be, I heard Wall St was even closed for the day...
    
    Can I assume that the post offices and banks are closed? I've heard
    conflicting answers.
    
    Thanks!
    
    Mike

    
    as a friend said to me:
    
    what do we do? take the afternoon off and break in somewhere?
    
    ;-)
    
    

    >>what do we do? take the afternoon off and break in somewhere?
    
    either that or go buy some cheap tape and find a doorlock that
    should be left open overnight...

    >non-essential government offices are to be closed, as well as the
    >Postal Service.
    
    smirrrrrrrrk  - yeah - that's one in the same, right?  OH!  I thought
    Adam typed in : non-EFFECTIVE government offices
    
    

    
    Call me what you will but sanctimonious I'm not : I'd like to dance on his 
    grave.
    
    c

Have you no respect for The Dead?

Richard Scarey.  Writer and illustrator of children's books.  In the
last 4 years or so, I've had a LOT of time to become acquainted
with his stuff.  The kids will miss you Rich.  R.I.P.

PeterT

    Richard Scarey? WOOOOOAAAHHHHHHHH
    "The Big City Book" and "Things that Go" are still in my attic.....
    Like Dr Seuss this author's books have spanned generations and are
    the classics of childhood......Rest in Peace Dick
    
    chris

    yep...my kids were raised on Richard Scarys' books...I esp. liked the
    ones with no words when my kids were real small, as did they, cause
    they made up their own story to the pics....
    
    rf

    oh bummer .. i love his stuff.  so do my kids - even though they
    are grown up now
    
    

    Re: Richard Scarry:
      My daughter loved Richard Scarry's very best ABC video EVER. She
    loves his books, especially Mister Paint Pig's Color Book.
    
    too bad.
    	

    >> Richard Scarrey
    
    	:-(  I grew up on Richard Scarrey's books....some of my earliest
    memories were looking/eventually reading them...I remember turning the
    page and the first thing I would do is look for the little worm guy.
    (kind of like a where's wally thing)...
    
    He'll be missed....
    
    ~danielle

>I remember turning the
>    page and the first thing I would do is look for the little worm guy.

now i know who y'all are talking about!

in spanish class in junior high we had a project where everyone made an
illustrated dictionary - each page illustrated a word in spanish beginning
with a different letter of the alphabet.  Lowly Worm (i think that was his
name) was the theme of my dictionary, and he appeared doing something on every
page.

- rich

My son went through three copies of Things That Go.

Sad.

Jim

I was bummed to read his obit last night.  I ordered "Richard Scarry's Best
Word Book Ever" through my Weekly Reader as a kid.  I really liked that book. 
I've always like bunnies and cats and dogs anyway :-)

My housemate didn't recognize his name, but when he read the obit he remembered
him because it mentioned the worm that was on every page.  I didn't even know
about that - I can't say I ever looked for it.

RIP

    >> through my Weekly Reader as a kid
    
    ah, memories.....;')

am I the only one that has no freakin' clue what y'all are talking about???

must've had a sheltered childhood ;^)

Glennnn

Don't feel too bad, Glenn.  I didn't follow Scarry's stuff till I started
reading it to my kids.  I certainly don't rememeber reading for myself when
I was a youngster.  Maybe he wasn't as prevalent back in the late
fifties, early sixties.  Or maybe my folks just didn't get around to 
his books for us.  I don't remember a lot of picture books for us, maybe
they were destroyed by the time I got to them (being #4 of 5 ;-).  And by
the time I was in 2nd or third grade, I was starting on novels, albeit
juvenile ones.

PeterT

    re Richard Scarry way back when
    Glennnn and PeterT
    you guys were probably too engrossed in deciphering those cave
    paintings done by other bands of hunter gatherers, right?
    
    chris_wise_ass_Gen_X'er_commentator

I'm clueless about Scarry too, Glennnnn ... I've enjoyed reading the notes
about him though!  ;^)

- dc

 >   you guys were probably too engrossed in deciphering those cave
 >   paintings done by other bands of hunter gatherers, right?

I prefer to think of it as gathering together in a cave with several species
of small furry animals and grooving with a pict ;-)

    
    Oh i see :^)
    

    ok, now all of you who don't know Scarry because you were still diggin'
    Dr. Suess, raise your hand...  :^)
    
    					da ve_Suess-head

>    ok, now all of you who don't know Scarry because you were still diggin'
>    Dr. Suess, raise your hand...  :^)

hey, they're not mutually exclusive!

- rich-who-dug-dr-suess-too

    true, they aren't...  i know Scarry too, but i was reading at a
    different level when he came onto my personal scene!  :^)
    
    					da ve

    John Wayne Gacy (sp?)

    Heard on the news this a.m. that there was a problem with his
    execution? seems the lethal injection had some hang up and they had to
    change the serum..Executions seem to have alot of problems..In college
    i had a class called the "Politics of Crime and Justice." Ted Bundy's
    legal advisor came as a guest speaker one day, this guy had been to
    numerous executions and told some horrific stories..One distinct one
    he explained was of an execution down south where the convict was
    shceduled to die by electrocution and the first time the switch was
    flicked, the guy didn't die, instead the body caught on fire and the
    inmate literally burned to death before the second shot of juice..
    justa little food for thought for the argument of capital punishment..
    chris

    Robert Nesta Marley, 13 years ago today.....
    

    HOW IRONIC! just got a best of Marley CD in the mail yesterday!!
    rfb

    Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, age 64.
    

    Joe Pass died yesterday of liver cancer. A great jazz guitarist.
    I'm bummed; he was one of my favorites.

    Joe Pass was great for sure, I haven't heard any of his music for quite
    a while, but I seem to recall a collaboration with Oscar Peterson
    (probably 1 of many) that I enjoyed...I'll have to check that out

sad.  man, trying to find joe pass cds/records is pretty tough!  i have not
had much luck, then again, i don't go into tower records much.

    re: Joe Pass records
    
    get 'Six String Santa' .. JP doing jazz versions of Christmas songs.
    It's on Laserlight for around 5.99 and is always in the stores around
    Christmas. It's also one of his best CD's. I even play it in July :-)

    Derek "Lek" Leckenby, lead guitarist for Herman's Hermits, died
    Saturday of non-hodgkins lymphoma, he was 51.

Really dead people goes www:

			http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Obituary/

    >Sun 10/9  7:30 pm  $8  WORMTOWN REVUE in memory of Paul "Tiny" Stacy
    
    					   ^^^^^^^^^^^^
    
    did Tiny pass away ?

>              <<< Note 79.682 by SLOHAN::FIELDS "Strange Brew" >>>
>
>    >Sun 10/9  7:30 pm  $8  WORMTOWN REVUE in memory of Paul "Tiny" Stacy
>    
>    					   ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>    
>    did Tiny pass away ?


Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view.  he is not 
trapped inside a sickly body anymore, he is as free as his spirit always 
was.  He died Sunday July 17, 1994.  He got tired and just stopped
fighting, his kidneys failed and he decided that it was time to go.

He will be missed be everyone who came in contact with him, but he has gone 
on to better things.

Geoff

    thanks Geoff, I must have missed the news as I was on vacation and in
    Ohio...and yes Tiny was a great man, he will be missed. He brought
    happiness and joy to a lot of people.....and Im glad I was able to do
    the same for him once...peace Tiny

    re: Tiny....I missed the news also, I didn't know until I got the OVK
    newsletter...
    
    I was luck enough to meet Tiny a couple times, once when I was in a
    band called The Jakes & Webster Band, and we played the Blue Plate in
    Holden...Tiny was a very happy guy, very understanding and helpful to
    the band
    
    Rest In Peace Tiny

WOW!  sad... always remember him at the door at the blue plate from years
back.....

RIP

    
    From the Internet, metaverse.com
    
    Former Jefferson Airplane pianist Nicky Hopkins has died at the
    age of 50.  Hopkins died Tuesday (06Sep94) in Nashville, Tenn. from
    abdominal and heart ailments.  As a studio muscian he played on
    The Rolling Stones' "Jumpin Jack Flash" and on "Revolution" by the
    Beatles.  He was a member of the Jeffereson Airplane when the group
    performed at Woodstock in 1969.
    
    

    Nicky is a big loss indeed. I always enjoyed his playing on the Stones
    - You Can't Always Get What You Want from their Let It Bleed album.
    This is one of the Stones bes IMHO.
    
    Jack

    He was also a member of Quicksilver Messenger Service, ie: Shady Grove.
    One of my fav's for sure...
    
    
    Sean.
    

    
     I think Nicky Hopkins played in one of Jerry's band's...around 74'
    "Legion of Mary", possibly....
    
    Sean

    Did Nicky play Edward the Mad Shirt Grinder on Quicksilver's first
    album?  Most intense keyboard song I can remeber.
    
    Bill

    Folks,
    
    i'm not entirely sure if this is true or not, so some confirmation 
    would be helpful before this rumour spreads...
    
    If it is true, it is surely one of the saddest pieces of news i've heard 
    in a while.  Some of you may have read my write-ups on this guy in the 
    Blues Power note and many more of you have either heard of him or seen 
    him.  From what i've heard, Danny Gatton commited suicide a couple weeks 
    back.
    
    His last couple albums (Elmira St. & Crusin' Deuces) were some of the
    most brilliant and unique blues albums i've ever heard.  His latest
    collaboration with John DeFransesca (SP?) an up and coming organ player 
    was about as close to Les Paul's style as you'll ever find...its sad to 
    think that a wonderful tribute to someone that Danny held so dear would 
    be followed by him taking his own life.
    
    Whenever someone takes their own life it is truely a sad situation,
    but it is especially sad when a creative talent as unique and wonderful
    to listen to as Danny Gatton passes from us so willingly.  My thoughts
    and i hope all of GRATEFUL's are with Danny, may he rest in peace
    knowing that many, many people will surely miss him.
    
    Saddly,
    		Dugo
                

     <<< Note 156.484 by CARROL::YOUNG "where is this place in space???" >>>
                     -< It can't be, but i fear it is... >-

It's true.  He *apparently* commited suicide as you say. 

Sad but true.
bob

    Bob,
    
    i realize it's far from appropriate to speculate on what happened to
    Danny, but could you tell me how you heard and what details came out...
    
    Tis sad,
    		Dugo

    Yeah, I heard that the day it happened on NPR.  I wasn't familiar
    with his stuff, but from the reports they gave on this guy,
    I'd definitely be interested in finding out.  Sigh...
    
    PeterT
    

    I also heard the news on NPR the day it happened.  In addition, this
    past Saturday (or was it Sunday?) NPR did a tribute to him during the 
    morning show.  It was a really nice piece, and included snippets of
    past NPR interviews with him and also several pieces of his music. 
    From the tribute it sounded like the authorities have concluded that he
    took his own life.
    
    --Tom

Raul Julia - this past weekend from complications from a stroke.  Bummer.
Damn fine actor.  You might remember him as Gomez in the Addams Family
movies, or from Kiss of a Spiderwoman or...  First time I saw him was
Shakespeare in the Park down in NYC.  He was playing Petruchio in
"The Taming of the Shrew" with Meryl Streep plaing Kate.  This was in 
the mid-seventies before either was really known.  It was so good, my 
friend and I went back a 2nd time to see it.  Sigh...  He'll be
missed....


PeterT

The first time I saw Raul Julia was in the bizarre movie "Eating Raoul".  Too
bad about him, he was only 54.

adam

    
    re-1
    
    	I saw that movie also  Bizarre but Funny!
    
    "I'll bag the Nazi Honey you go to bed"  ...
    
    
    	Toby

    Over last weekend......
    
    Cab Calloway, of Minnie the Moocher fame, also coined the word "chick"
    to describe a girl/woman
    
    One of the original leaders/founders of Quicksilver Messenger Service,
    last name started with a V???sorry, name escapes me right now.
    
    rfb

    Dino Valenti?
    
    
    He was with them in the very beginning and at the very end. Had a hard
    time keeping out of jail as I remember, always gettin busted for pot.
    
    

    Special Report on TV, "murderer and cannibalist" Jeffrey Dahmer was
    killed in a Wisconsin prison recreation yard today, from massive head
    injuries...apparently he and another inmate were attacked, don't know
    about the other guy, but Dahmer was killed

Jerry Rubin, former Yippy and member of the Chicago 7, age 56, of a
heart attack while under treatment for an auto accident.

Abby and Jerry are gone - anyone know how the remaining 5 of the 7
are doing?  (I know Tom Haydn's still around - who else?)

tim

    Bobby Seale is still alive too isn't he?

    Tommy Boyce died over the weekend. Suicide.
    
    Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote many of those great
    classic tunes that made the Monkees famous.
    
    

    So long Jerry, we'll miss ya...  (no, not that Jerry!)
    
    Kevin Kelly, Globe theatre critic, after a long battle with 
    cancer.
    
    PeterT
    

 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

         BONZO LEADER, BRITISH ZANY, VIVIAN STANSHALL DIES IN FIRE

 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

>From: "Mark Charlton" <CUDAV@ice.csv.warwick.ac.uk>
Organization:  University of Warwick
To: r-thompson@listserver.njit.edu
Date:          Wed, 8 Mar 1995 09:15:03 +0000 (GMT)
Subject:       Re: Great loss (Viv Stanshall)

According to yesterday's (Tues 7th) Guardian (and reproduced entirely 
without permission):

Bonzo Dog leader, a true English eccentric, dies in bedroom blaze
=================================================================
(Written by John Mullin)

Vivian Stanshall,leader of the cult sixties pop and comedy group the 
Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, has died in a fire at his London home. He was 
52.

Stanshall, a thorough British eccentric, was found in the bedroom of 
his flat in Muswell Hill on Sunday. Investigations are under way to 
establish the cause of the fire. There will be an inquest.

He had recently signed a new recording contract with WEA. The aim was 
to produce a follow-up recording of one of his more famous 
characters, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End.

[end of extract]

In today's Guardian there is an obituary which says that Warners may 
release the material which he has recorded since the contract was 
signed in 1993. There is also an appreciation of Viv by Neil Innes.

"I don't give a toss what you have done with me when I've shuffled 
off me mortal coil. Shove a bit of flex up my back passage, stick a 
light bulb in my mouth and stand me in the hall." - Sir Henry.

Vivial Stanshall - March 21, 1943 - March 5, 1995. Sadly missed.
Cheers
Mark

Mark Charlton, Network Consultant, Computing Services  Phone: +44 1203 523058
University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK            Fax:   +44 1203 523267
JANET: m.charlton@uk.ac.warwick               INET:  m.charlton@warwick.ac.uk

 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 
 I loved that band, funny, smart, eclectic, often rocking.  I had breakfast
 with them once, but it was just a pleasant time, not a hint of zaniness.
 They had just finished a gig at the Boston Tea Party with the Grateful
 Dead.  Among his many distinctions, Vivian Stanshall was "the doodah man"
 of the Grateful Dead song "Truckin'".  

 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

    Howard Cosell
    Monday Night Football icon

    RIP Howard...although I'll always bum that I heard the news of John
    Lennon's passing from Howard, on monday night football, studying for
    finals at school...Howard started into one of his ramblings, I just
    wanted him to shut up, and then when he said that.......drag
    
    Wes

I once heard a tape from the MNF booth before Howard announced Lennon's death. 
Cosell and his co-host were discussing whether it was important enough to
annouce on-air.  Howard didn't feel it was, but was talked into it.  Weren't
they announcing a rare Monday night Pats game?

Cosell quit announcing boxing matches after "Tex" Cobb got brutally beaten up in
a fight that should've been stopped.  When told, Cobb said "I'll go another ten
rounds if it'll get him off football."

Jamie

     <<< Note 156.502 by ASDG::IDE "My mind's lost in a household fog." >>>
>Cosell quit announcing boxing matches after "Tex" Cobb got brutally beaten up in
>a fight that should've been stopped.  When told, Cobb said "I'll go another ten
>rounds if it'll get him off football."

I watched that fight...Howard's best line was "This is a trav-es-ty."  
I believe at the end of that boxing match he said that he would NEVER 
again broadcast a boxing match and I think he never did.

I was in agreement w/ Howard though - Randy Tex Cobb took the worst licking
I've ever seen.  He face was a mess....

bob

p.s  We named our remote control for our TV to be "howard control".

    Elizabeth Montgomery...  aka Samantha Stevens...  dead of cancer...
    i believe she was 58...
    
    one of my first crushes from childhood...  right up there with Jeannie,
    Marcia Brady, Laurie (? Susan Dey) Partridge and many other tv sweeties
    from the cheez-eating late 60's and early 70's....
    
    					da ve  

    makes my nose wanna go "tinkle tinkle tink" 
    RIP Sam....
    
    rfb

    Alexander Gudunov (sp?) dancer/actor of an "undisclosed disease" age 45
    
    da ve, don't forget Parmenter Jane on F-Troop....or Ellie May out by
    the seamen pond :)))
    
    WO

    I agree, I fell in love with Sam, even when they switched Derwins,
    ever notice how every vechile in the show was a Chevy?
    
    Life was less complex then.

    i always figured she got sick of looking at the other Darren so
    with a cute little nose wiggle, she upgraded... :^)   i love Rosie
    O'Donnell's routine where she talks about how switching Darrens
    traumatized her...  she'd go into her fathers room late at night
    and wake him up just to make sure it was the same guy... :^)
    
    					da ve
    
    ps.  what was Wrangler Jane's last name??  did they ever tell us, or
    was it just Jane?  i don't think she ever got to marry capt
    Parmenter...  zowie...  talk about an opportunity lost... :^)

    
    Never cared that much for Samantha .....
    
    her cousin Sabrina was a babe   8-)
    
    
    
    Toby

I think Jimi Hendrix died 25 years ago today.  

Jim

    Orville Redenbacher...  yesterday...  heart attack in the bathtub
    i believe...  88?
    
    					da ve_popcorn_muncher

Warning, press return only if you enjoy tasteless humor:



re: Orville

The coroner's report said that no part of his heart was left unpopped ;-)

I saw him appear in someone's trade show booth last year -- he looked 
EMBALMED ALREADY!!  ("Were those little wheels on his feet?")

	Yitzhak Rabin...hopefully the quest for peace will continue.

    i don't think we will ever see peace in the midst of religious strife
    tho debess...that is the scary part
    
    
    his actions will be remembered for years to come

    ya gotta believe...
    
    sometimes i think being a peace person is more dangerous and requires
    more courage than the alternative...  fortunately we haven't run out of
    people yet who are willing to stand up and take the stand...
    
    it can happen...  if enough of us believe it enough...  and let our 
    actions show where we stand...
    
    					da ve

>    sometimes i think being a peace person is more dangerous and requires
>    more courage than the alternative...  

    i don't think there's any doubt about it.

    I also think the murder was "caused" by the peace process, in
    the sense that if there weren't one, there wouldn't be a backlash.

    It can be seen as a forward progression.  It depends on one's
    perspective.  Time will tell.

    Tom

    
    FWIW
    A lot of people that stood for peace died in this year, 1995.
    I certainly hope this is the higher-power's way of bringing attention
    to peace, and not that the world is headed down hate street.  Seems
    there's more meany's now than ever.

     The Song of Peace

     Let the sun rise
     And give the morning light,
     The purest prayer
     Will not bring us back

     He whose candle was snuffed out
     And was buried in the dust
     A better cry won't wake him
     Won't bring him back

     Nobody will return us
     From the dead dark pit.
     Here neither the victory cheer
     Nor songs of praise will help

     So, sing only a song for peace
     Do not whisper a prayer
     Better sing a song for peace
     With a strong shout.

     Let the sun penetrate
     Through the flowers
     Don't look backward
     Leave those who departed

     Lift your eyes with hope
     Not through rifle sights
     Sing a song for love
     And not for wars

     Don't say the day will come
     Bring the day because it is not a dream
     And within all the city's squares
     Cheer only peace

    I was so saddened by this news....what's the big deal about giving back
    some land??  one story I heard that when the news was announced, some
    settlers started cheering. The Israli army said "screw u" and walked
    off their job of protecting the settlers. The army had to be ordered
    back, more than once. 
    
    My heart goes out to all jews and all peoples of the world...
    
    rfb

    John Lennon?
    1980...if my meory serves me correctly?

    indeed.
    again, the wheel turns..

	rip john
	
	and last monday, two years ago, frank zappa died.

	"Love is all you need"....

	RIP John


	Toby

I know this is rather late, but hell, he's still dead, so I guess it
still counts.

Gene Kelly at age 84 of pneumonia.

Possibly the best song-and-dance man that ever lived.  I thought about
posting this a week or more ago and then forgot about it in the throes of
the daily crush.  Yesterday, PBS aired "Singing in the Rain", and it
reminded me again.  This guy was amazing to watch.

tim

    yep, Gene was incredible...  so was Fred...
    
    but imho, the women they danced with were even better...  after all,
    they had to do all the same moves...  wearing a skirt...  in high
    heels...   and backwards...  :^)
    
    					da ve

	i wasn't sure where to put this...  thought about the bummer
	note, but there are some elements that aren't a bummer...
	thought about the thought for today note, but that didn't seem
	right either...  and it certainly isn't something that makes me
	feel especially good, so i guess it's here...

	my friend Christina Richmond, who many of you know as 
	"Chemo Girl" or Chriso's step daughter, died this morning...

	she died at home, in her own room and bed...  Chris said she
	was comfortable, and at peace...  she just quietly slipped away,
	with her family there...  through the door and into the light...
	i find myself now  wondering if her angel came and helped her
	find her way...

	it's really kind of strange...  it's been taking me a while to 
	sink in...  i've been making my phone calls to let some friends 
	know, and now that i've had a few minutes by myself, there's 
	a whole jumble of things going on...

	i'm glad for it, because she was really suffering...  tumors 
	all over her body, causing a lot of pain, closing one eye, even 
	causing some fractures...  

	but it's a bummer, cuz she was a really remarkable kid...  and she 
	had quite an effect on the folks around her...  i didn't know her
	especially well, or for very long, but it still feels like something's
	missing somehow...  it would have been nice to know her for more 
	of her short life, but i'm kinda glad i didn't, since it pretty well sux
	right now so i can't imagine what it would be life if i'd know her for
	all of her 12 years...

	somewhere she's dancing and happy and can relax and know peace... 
	so i'm glad of that...  but the next couple of days of funerals and wakes
	and such aren't going to be much fun...

	i still believe in Chemo Girl...

				da ve

Da ve,

I'm getting teary eyed thinking about it.  I know exactly how you feel...

Especially the part you said about wishing you knew her better but
just as well you didn't....
Our good family friends had a little boy named Chris who I mentioned
in here when you first brought this up.  We watched him/them go thru
*many* ups and downs and seemingly beat it until one day it beat him.
I remember it all and especially the phone call from my mother (I had
since moved out of the house..) when Chris passed away...

:(

    good vibes to those who knew her
    and peace to Chemo Girl

    
    Wiping the tears away...........
    
    Rest in Peace

	Peace

    
    Sniff...  
    
    :-(
  
    Her bravery and upbeat way of looking at things will help other 
    children to cope as they read her book. 

	"all I know is something like a bird within her sang
	 all I know she sang a little while and then flew off"

	thanks da ve, for letting us know, somewhat, this amazing
	little girl - she inspired us all, even in the short time
	she was here.  My thoughts are once again with her as she
	leaves her pain-wracked body behind.  Peace, Christina.

	Oh, this must be -so- hard for her parents.  I hope it helps 
	them somewhat to think that she died so peacefully.  But still...
	Best wishes to them as they deal with the death of their
	child.
	
	Debess

Rest in Eternal Peace, Chemo Girl

My first inclination in such a situation is to say, "I'm sorry".
But as I get older it becomes clear to me that this doesn't always
express the proper emotion...death can be a very mixed bag of
emotions.  There are times and circumstances in which it is a
real blessing.  And yet...

I'm sorry.

Dan

    
    Rest in Peace Christina....
    
    Being the father of a little girl I hope I never know the
    feeling her family feels now. My heart cries for them
    
    Toby

	I ran into Chriso a couple weeks ago and he told us of some of the other
aspects of this roller coaster ride. I can only wish for the family stregnth and
peace. It appears to me that Christina has found peace, though it is still very
sad. 

	I know for the family it will never be over
	Geoff

    John Kahn died today... his wife tried to wake him and he was dead...

    /Ken

    
    John Kahn ... jeeeez - unreal
    

    our hearts go out to Christinas' family....peace be with Christina, i'm
    sure she'll be dancin up a storm in heaven.
    
    
    John Kahn....can you imagine Jerry and JK right now??? I will be playing 
    JGB&JK tonite. 
    
    rest in peace all,
    
    rfb

    i have a grate photo of Jerry and Kahn on stage at I think a halloween
    show in NYC in '86 or '87.  I think i got it from Howard  Coffman who
    used to be a Deccie.  up close and personal photo.  
    
    go figure
    

	yeah, i noticed on Hunter's acrchive page he had a "In Memory of
	John Kahn".   unreal.

	Timothy Leary died just after midnite.  :-(
	

    WHAT THE F*CK!
    things have gone awry as the full moon approaches

    what's happening here!?! This  is almost too much to take today.
    
    JGB&JK and the good doctors medicine this weekend 

    feels like someone should say 'april fool' 
    
    

			      Timothy has passed ...
  Just after midnight, in his favorite bed among loving friends, Timothy Leary
 peacefully passed on. His last words were "why not?" and "yeah". Our friend and
	teacher, guide and inspiration will continue to live within us. 
	
		    A memorial celebration is being planned.
	
	
	

    Peace to Christina and her family.  I believe she is in a much better
    place now, flying with the angels.

    RIP, Christina, RIP...  Saw her obit today in the Telegram Gazette, 
    but I'd already reached my dialy paper limit with the Globe and
    the USA today article.  Sigh, I'd hate to imagine what it would be
    like to lose your kid.  Seeing them sick is bad enough.
    
    Peace to John Kahn and his family and the good Doctor.  I guess he
    didn't manage to take himself out on the Net, eh?  Hope he had one
    of his Leary crakers to help ease him along.
    
    PeterT
    

I was just out to the bookstore to find something for my daughter,
and came across the following...and I knew I had to enter it here.

	On the Death of Friends in Childhood

    We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven,
    Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell;
    If anywhere in the deserted schoolyard at twilight,
    Forming a ring perhaps, or joining hands
    In games whose very names we have forgotten.
    Come, memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.
				- Donald Justice

     '60s Drug Guru Timothy Leary Dies at 75

     By CONSTANCE SOMMER
     Associated Press Writer

     LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor turned guru of
     LSD who encouraged the '60s generation to ``turn on, tune in, drop
     out,'' died today of cancer. He was 75.

     Leary, who had turned his battle with terminal cancer into a public
     evet, died at his hilltop Beverly Hills home, said Carol Rosin, a
     friend for 25 years.

     Fans could follow his deteriorating health through his site on the
     World Wide Web. Last month, he said he was exploring the idea of
     allowing users of the computer communications network to watch as he
     committed suicide.

     In the end, though, he died in his sleep surrounded with family and
     friends, Rosin said. His home page announced the death with a simple
     ``Timothy has passed.''

     It also said his last words were ``why not'' and ``yeah.''

     ``He had been alert for the last few days _ he'd been traveling with
     one foot in this world and one foot in the other world,'' Rosin said.
     ``Until yesterday, he was moving around in an electric wheelchair, but
     he was getting weaker.'' His life seldom failed to polarize two
     generations _ the parents and flower children of the 1960s. To some of
     the most gifted members of America's counterculture, he was host,
     confidant and drug supplier.

     The popular '70s British band The Moody Blues even put him in their
     song ``Legend of a Mind,'' singing, ``Timothy Leary's dead. Oh, no no
     no...''. After he fell ill, they retooled the lyric, ``Timothy Leary
     lives,'' and sang it to him over the phone. He said it moved him to
     tears.

     But for all his popularity with some baby boomers, Leary's activities
     cost him his Harvard job and landed him in prison for a time.

     It was in 1959 that Leary joined the Harvard faculty as a psychology
     professor. There, he met professor Richard Alpert, who later change his
     name to Baba Ram Dass, and began a series of controlled experiments
     with psychedelic drugs.

     Four years later, Leary and Alpert were fired for using undergraduate
     students in the tests.

     The pair retired to Millbrook Estate, a 63-room mansion in upstate New
     York once owned by the Mellon family. William Burroughs, Abbie Hoffman,
     Jack Kerouac, Aldous Huxley and Allen Ginsberg among others came and
     went, all united by a desire to experiment with drugs.

     But ingesting mass quantities of LSD and bragging about it did not
     endear Leary to members of the Establishment, especially the ones with
     badges.

     And for the next 20 years, he had run-ins with the law.

     In 1970, he escaped from the California Men's Colony at San Luis
     Obispo, where he was serving a 10-year sentence for marijuana
     possession. His bust-out was aided by the Weather Underground and his
     third wife, Rosemary.

     Leary and his wife bounced from country to country. In Algeria, they
     took up residence-in-exile with Eldridge Cleaver, who ultimately
     kidnapped his guests after a political disagreement.

     The Learys escaped, fleeing to Switzerland. U.S. agents eventually
     caught up with Leary in 1973 in Afghanistan, and he was imprisoned in
     California.

     After his release in 1976, Leary's life became a circuitous journey of
     lecture tours, experiments with stand-up comedy, writing books, an
     obsession with cyberspace and dabbling in the Hollywood party scene.

     Some accused him of selling out when he began a lecture tour in 1982
     with Watergate villain G. Gordon Liddy. It was much-hyped _ and
     much-ridiculed.

     The criticism left Leary unfazed, though.

     ``I am a very courageous person,'' he once told The Associated Press.
     ``And I am a very self-confident person. To be self-confident, you have
     to be (expletive) intelligent.''

     Born in Springfield, Mass., in 1920 to a dentist and schoolteacher,
     Leary attended West Point, went into the Army, and earned an
     undergraduate psychology degree at the University of Alabama while in
     the service.

     After earning a master's degree from Washington State University and a
     doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley,
     he went to work at Harvard.

     ``I wanted to be a philosopher. Aristotle, Plato, Voltaire and all
     these guys who were out there in nirvana,'' he said. ``I discovered as
     I grew up that I was different. Life was to have adventures and quests
     and Huckleberry Finn and the notion of being ... of living a life of
     exploration and adventure.''

     At times, it was tragic as well as adventurous.

     Leary married five times. His first wife committed suicide in 1959. The
     couple had two children. The son, who felt abandoned by his father's
     ribald lifestyle, was estranged from Leary. The daughter, accused as an
     adult of shooting her boyfriend, hanged herself at the Sybil Brand
     Institute for Women in 1990.

     Those incidents, Leary said, were the only regrets of his life.

     After he was diagnosed with terminal cancer in January 1995, he focused
     on dying.

     ``I was really thrilled because I knew that this was the beginning of
     the most fascinating part of my life,'' he told the AP.

     He said he was not afraid of dying _ just afraid of pain and of being
     helpless. He used drugs right up to the end ``for medicinal purposes,''
     his friends said.

     ``No. 1, we're all going to die,'' he said. ``And we're all going to
     get senile, if we're lucky enough to hang around that long. So there's
     nothing to be afraid of.

     ``Some guy at a party came up to me and said `Good luck on your death.'
     And that's one of the most powerful things that anyone has ever said to
     me,'' Leary said. ``It implies `Have a good life. Have a good death.'''

     Rosin said his remains would be launched into space in September or
     October, but plans had yet to be finalized.

     ``He was so excited ... He was literally jumping up and down in his
     wheelchair when we told him we had made the preparations,'' Rosin said.

    eldridge cleaver kidnapped leary?
    
    
    that is bizarre
    
    may the good doctor rest in peace

    actually, according to his most recent wife and stepson, his last
    words, "Why not", where said rather emphatically...like "why not, why NOT,
    WHY NOT! then "Yeah".

what was he saying "why not, why NOT, WHY NOT"  to???  or whom?

    the angel.....

	at the risk of entering an unpopular opinion, or two:

	regarding the deaths last week of John Kahn and Timothy Leary...
	and I in no way mean to say that I'm happy that they're dead
	or anything like that:

	first, while I was very impressed with Leary's attitude toward
	his impending death, I am somehow somewhat un-impressed with what 
	he did with his life...!...well, not -all- his life...but somehow,
	with his brilliant unconventional mind and all, somehow I would 
	have expected him to go beyond "tune in, turn on, drop out"...which 
	seems like all he -did- do...there was -so- much more potential....
	but hey, it was his life...just expressing my opinion...
	(I also somehow wonder if he hadn't been so "in your face" with
	the establishment, if LSD wouldn't be illegal today, or at the very
	least, a legal alternative psychiatric tool)

	and John Kahn.  I had heard very pointed rumors over the years
	about his drug usage and his "encouragement" of Garcia along those
	lines - tricky stuff here...surely noone could really -force-
	Garcia to do anything he didn't want to...of course he made his
	own decisions - but, it makes it a lot easier to continue down
	that path when there's someone to play with.  After reading Scully's 
	book, it seemed to pretty much confirm stories I had heard.  In any 
	case, I find it hard to -not- have some negative feelings towards Kahn
	and his role in Jerry's "demise".  And I know that these feelings
	should really be directed towards Jerry himself, but the irrational
	way that feelings sometimes work, this is the way it is with me.
	They're just my feelings...

	that said, I spent the day Friday listening to Almost Acoustic,
	Old and In the Way, and some great Garcia&Kahn tapes I have...
	and wished him the best in his afterlife...

	RIP, John and Timothy

    
    you can't please everyone, 
        so, you've got to please yourself...
    
    /b

Re: Kahn

I recall, also, that one of the largest of the claims on Jerry's estate
was from Kahn for payment for past JGB shows....fwiw.

tim

    Any word on what caused John's passing?
    
    Fredda

	Jan Kerouac - only child of Jack Kerouac - died last week.
	She was an author, likewise.

	She has been "in the news" around here lately because she
	wanted to move his body from Lowell to Nashua...but Lowell
	would have none of that...

	Debess

    why would she want him in Nashua?

>                 -< I spent 26 years trying to get OUT.. :^) >-

	:-) :-) :-)

>    why would she want him in Nashua?

	his parents and brother are buried here

    Mama Cass choked on a chicken sandwich 22 years ago today...

    Now, that's a piece of information that I really needed to make my day
    complete.  :-)
    

    take this fwiw... that was no chicken sandwich.  (speaking of drugs)

    i thought it was ham 
    

Greg Morris, electronics expert Barney on Mission: Impossible, possibly of
brain cancer, at age 61.

    Tom Fogerty died 1990.

		      Blue Moon of Kentucky Keep on shinin'
	                            ...Bill Monroe
	               Father of Bluegrass Music
	
	               September 13, 1911 - September 9, 1996
	

        "It's hard to say bluegrass is exactly Bill's invention.  Maybe
 you should say it's his discovery.  He is the guy responsible for making
 the decisions that produced that style of playing.  And his personal
 interpretation of the music and his own background are a large part of
 the coloration of bluegrass music--the expression, the sound of it.
        And his choice of players.  The premier bluegrass band was in the
 late forties.  The combination of the bluesy fiddle playing of Chubby
 Wise; Bill's hard-as-nails mandolin attack--also with a very bluesy
 tonality--his high, hard, mountain style of singing; Earl Scruggs'
 barns-on-fire banjo playing--lightning, incredibly accurate, pinpoint,
 silver-bell banjo-playing--Lester Flatt's warm tenor lead and solid
 guitar runs; and a string bass underneath the whole thing: _that's_ a
 bluegrass band.  That was Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys.  His band
 was called the Blue Grass Boys, and that's why they're called bluegrass
 bands.
        When I heard my first live tape of bluegrass music, I went
 through the roof.  The sound, the words, the titles of the
 songs--everything about it spoke to me on some primal level, and it was
 just something I felt compelled to learn.  I just had to.  There was no
 getting around it.  I wanted to be a Blue Grass Boy in the worst way, but
 I didn't have the nerve to even talk to Bill.  I still want to be a Blue
 Grass Boy."
    --Jerry Garcia, liner notes to the Bill Monroe boxed set (MCA records)

    wow...85 years old.....just think if Jerry would have had the stamina
    to last 85 years like Bill M did.....just think....

Thanks Debess.  What a wonderful eulogy.

I've been a fan of bluegrass of any kind for almost 25 years, and Monroe's
inspiration was everywhere.  It's one of the very few truly indiginous American
musical styles (along with blues, and jazz), so much so that even in his
passing it's difficult to say that in the end we have lost as much as we have
gained.

Hell, I even tap my toes to the Country Bear Jamboree soundtrack - much to the
embarassment of my kids, I might add...;-)

Thanks, Bill. 

tim

    it's funny how often when one grows up with something as a youngster,
    (bluegrass) one has less of an appreciation for that, then
    sorta abandons it  for something else newer, (R-n-R) how
    one takes for granted the older for awhile...but then comes back around
    again....
    
    the faster we go the rounder we get
    
    rfb_raised on bluegrass and country

re: rfb's "just think, if Jerry had lived to 85"

I go back and forth... mourning what will not be (ferinstance the September
Boston run :-( )... and trying to keep the mindset that this is life, it
goes forward and you can't turn back

I sometimes find myself wallowing too much in the "just think/I wish that..." 
mode - and it depresses me and, in my case, has nothing positive to offer - 
it just sinks me lower.

I find that I have to consciously put up a barrier when I find myself
thinking like that...and I have to consciously try to change my way of
thinking so that I will be open to finding something else to give me that 
"spark" in my life.  It's a lesson that I think Jerry was trying to give 
always, anyways.  With his death, this lesson is all the more valuable,
because now I have no choice.

rfb, hope you don't think this note is saying anything about you.  It's
about me.  And I surely understand...I miss him too much myself.  I'm just 
rambling about what's going on with me...

Debess