RIP Hilly Kristal
Former owner and founder of now-defunct pioneering rock club CBGB, Hilly Krystal, died yesterday, August 28th, 2007, of lung cancer. He was 75 years old.
I will always remember CBGB for its super scary toilets (pictured above: the Men’s Room)! At least they were not as “Trainspotting-esque” as those at The Continental!
Pioneering Be-Bop Jazz drummer Max Roach passed away on Wednesday, August 16th, 2007. He was 83.
Farewell, Funny Man (a href=”http://sportschump.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/charles-nelson-reilly-meh.jpg”>Image Source
Comic Actor Charles Nelson Reilly Dies at 76
Frequent Game Show Guest Was a Tony Award Winner
The New York Times
Charles Nelson Reilly, who acted and directed on Broadway but came to be best known for his campy television appearances on talk shows and “Match Game,” died on Friday (May 27th, 2007) in Los Angeles. He was 76 and lived in Beverly Hills, Calif.
The cause was complications of pneumonia, said his partner, Patrick Hughes, who is his only immediate survivor. Mr. Reilly had been ill for more than a year, he said.
Long before moving west to become what he somewhat ruefully described as a “game show fixture,” Mr. Reilly was an actor and an acting teacher in New York City. In 1962, he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Bud Frump in the original Broadway production of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
Continue reading RIP Charles Nelson Reilly
Kurt Vonnegut, Great American Novelist: 1922 – 2007
Author Kurt Vonnegut has passed away at the age of 84. He was my favorite author of all time and my single greatest writing influence. His book Slapstick literally changed my life. He is the reason I started writing. I am so sad right now.
Here is a passage from another favorite Vonnegut novel, Slaughterhouse Five, which was based in part on his own experiences as a WWII Prisoner of War.
“A guard would go to the head of the stairs every so often to see what it was like outside, then he would come down and whisper to the other guards. There was a fire-storm out there. Dresden was one big flame. The one flame ate everything organic, everything that would burn.
It wasn’t safe to come out of the shelter until noon the next day. When the Americans and their guards did come out, the sky was black with smoke. The sun was an angry little pinhead. Dresden was like the moon now, nothing but minerals. The stones were hot. Everybody else in the neighborhood was dead.
So it goes.”
— Slaughterhouse-Five
Animation Greats William Hanna and Joe Barbera with Tom and Jerry
Joe Barbera, half of the Hanna-Barbera animation team that produced such beloved cartoon characters as Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear and the Flintstones, passed away Monday, December 18th , a Warner Bros. spokesman said. He was 95.
I don’t know about you, but I was rasied on Hanna-Barbera cartoons — The Flinstones and The Jetsons being two of my favorites — and even had my first crush on animated boy adventurer, Johnny Quest. The picture below represents many of Hanna-Barbera’s most popular and enduring/iconic characters. That really takes me back. Maybe it’s cheaper to make all cartoons in Asia these days, but you sure don’t see the same quality as you did back in the day.
