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Apr 10, 2013 23:03:59 GMT -5
Post by BoatBabe on Apr 10, 2013 23:03:59 GMT -5
I remember running home from school to watch the Mickey Mouse Club. I'll bet I can still name all the "original" Mouseketeers. We used to play that we were the Mouseketeers. I was Doreen. I am So not surprised, Jane. She was your perfect fit. RIP, Annette.
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Apr 27, 2013 22:29:51 GMT -5
Post by jspnrvr on Apr 27, 2013 22:29:51 GMT -5
And so it goes....
RIP, Possum
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Apr 27, 2013 23:46:02 GMT -5
Post by doctork on Apr 27, 2013 23:46:02 GMT -5
We lost Richie Havens this past week also.
And though MerleFest has been wonderful, there is the bittersweet note of commemorating the lost of both Doc and Rosalie Watson last year.
It is notable that we all have so many specific musical memories, so the loss of a musician we loved connotes so much more - the passing of a time, an era, specific relationships, a specific location.
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May 21, 2013 0:24:18 GMT -5
Post by doctork on May 21, 2013 0:24:18 GMT -5
Ray Manzarek of The Doors, passes away at age 74.
Break on through...to the other side. You'll be missed here.
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Jul 29, 2013 11:01:57 GMT -5
Post by BoatBabe on Jul 29, 2013 11:01:57 GMT -5
And another loss: JJ Cale.
Dang
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Jun 4, 2014 20:38:56 GMT -5
Post by BoatBabe on Jun 4, 2014 20:38:56 GMT -5
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Jun 4, 2014 22:04:30 GMT -5
Post by jspnrvr on Jun 4, 2014 22:04:30 GMT -5
Thanks for that one, BB.
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Jun 5, 2014 18:49:02 GMT -5
Post by doctork on Jun 5, 2014 18:49:02 GMT -5
Thanks for posting this BoatBabe. I expect the story will headline this week's Navajo Times newspaper.
The words "On behalf of a grateful nation" are used on numerous occasions, but this man's life, and those of his fellow code talkers, are lives for which we truly are grateful. I am glad we are seeing that now, after years of the code talkers' work being kept under wraps.
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Jun 5, 2014 22:24:46 GMT -5
Post by BoatBabe on Jun 5, 2014 22:24:46 GMT -5
I just love this story and this man. Many have followed. I am grateful.
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Jun 18, 2014 0:34:28 GMT -5
Post by doctork on Jun 18, 2014 0:34:28 GMT -5
I bought last week's Navajo Times today (OK, sometimes I am slow, I admit it) and the headline was "Nez gets the sendoff a code talker deserves."
Some interesting points from the story:
The funeral cortege was over two miles long.
The State of New Mexico closed the entire freeway from Albuquerque (site of the funeral service) to Santa Fe (site of the burial) for all vehicles except funeral traffic - must be at least 40 miles.
Friends and family thought Nez would have gotten a big kick from the beautiful bouquet of white roses and carnations sent by the Boston Red Sox. Chester Nez broke the Curse of the Bambino in 2004 when he threw out the opening pitch when the Red Sox played the Yankees, and he also gave a traditional Navajo blessing to the Red Sox. The Red Sox came from behind a 0 - 3 deficit (it was best-of-seven) to beat the Yankees and then went on to beat the Cardinals. The team has always credited their victory to Chester Nez.
All New Mexico state flags were flown at half-mast on June 10, in honor of Nez and the other 28 original code talkers. This was done through an executive order from Governor Martinez, and the order was issued in the Navajo language.
The family hadn't planned on such a large funeral (nearly 1,000 mourners in attendance) and were overwhelmed by the expenses. In fact, Navajo generally don't plan and set aside money for funerals, as such doings conflict with their traditional beliefs. The Chester Nez Memorial Fund has been established to help with the expenses, and contributions may be made at any Bank of America branch. I suspect and hope that the need was met as soon as the announcement was made.
Quite a man. He was really something. All 29 of the original code talkers were remarkable, creating the only war time code that was never broken, saving our nation from who-knows-what fate.
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Jun 18, 2014 8:54:12 GMT -5
Post by BoatBabe on Jun 18, 2014 8:54:12 GMT -5
Thanks for that, Doc.
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Jun 18, 2014 21:31:00 GMT -5
Post by jspnrvr on Jun 18, 2014 21:31:00 GMT -5
Thanks from this direction, as well.
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Nov 4, 2014 9:34:54 GMT -5
Post by BoatBabe on Nov 4, 2014 9:34:54 GMT -5
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Dec 7, 2014 11:16:31 GMT -5
Post by doctork on Dec 7, 2014 11:16:31 GMT -5
It's December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, a day to remember what happened 73 years ago.
On this day I recall living in Hawaii from 1962 - 1965, That was only 21 - 24 years after December 7, 1941, which doesn't seem long at all now, though 73 years does feel like a "long time" now. And here in Indian Country we are reminded at least weekly of the passage of time by stories of the Navajo Code Talkers.
We visited the USS Arizona memorial on several occasions. It was eerie to see an oil slick on the surface, drifting up from the ship's carcass beneath the surface. I wonder if that still happens. It's been more than 30 years since I last visited Hawaii.
May all those souls rest in peace.
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Post by BoatBabe on Dec 7, 2014 14:44:00 GMT -5
Yes. The oil slick still slowly and quietly seeps up from the carcass of The Arizona. And it does continue to feel like ghosts slipping up from below to say, "Remember Us."
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Dec 13, 2014 8:01:58 GMT -5
Post by jspnrvr on Dec 13, 2014 8:01:58 GMT -5
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Dec 13, 2014 10:45:27 GMT -5
Post by BoatBabe on Dec 13, 2014 10:45:27 GMT -5
You, Sir, are correct.
Another favorite catches the early train.
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Feb 12, 2015 21:25:08 GMT -5
Post by BoatBabe on Feb 12, 2015 21:25:08 GMT -5
Oh, this one just hurt me today. Richard Sher.
Quote
Richard Sher’s “Says You!” could be heard on more than 100 radio stations. His wife said the show will continue.
Richard Sher’s “Says You!” could be heard on more than 100 radio stations. His wife said the show will continue. By Bryan MarquardGlobe Staff February 11, 2015
A decade into hosting the radio quiz show “Says You!” that he created, Richard Sher reached the point where he figured he could start making the questions more difficult, and that’s saying something.
Mr. Sher, who died Monday at 66, turned the lightning wit of living room repartee among sharp-minded friends into a weekly show that has aired on more than 100 stations across the country. A sort of Trivial Pursuit on intellectual steroids, the show features categories such as “cryptic puns” and “odd man out” and word play that could swiftly send a hand from head-scratching to thigh-slapping.
“People used to say, ‘Gee the show is hard.’ But it’s not important to know the answers,” he told the Globe in 2006. “You just have to like the answers.”
Dedicated fans across the country liked Mr. Sher, too. An affable host, he presided over a seeming anarchy of zingers and one-liners. He assembled a panel of six Boston media figures more than 18 years ago, and though there have been guests and substitutes, the original panelists have remained since the first shows were taped on WGBH-FM in early 1997, a rare longevity in any broadcast endeavor.
Mr. Sher, who lived in Weston, recorded his final shows as host at the beginning of January. Since July he had been responding to treatment for advanced colon cancer but was diagnosed with leptomeningitis in his final weeks. He died in Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
His creativity and humor were “matched by his intelligence and spirit,” Jonathan Abbott, WGBH’s chief executive, said in an e-mail.
Mr. Sher, Abbott said, “shaped the program with his talent for words and puzzles and understood that audiences would be engaged by out-loud problem solving. He made ‘Says You!’ a distinctive, inviting, and enduring celebration of curiosity.”
Preparing most of the questions, sometimes working late into the night before shows were taped before live audiences in Boston or in venues across the country, Mr. Sher crafted specific questions for each panelist.
“There was something about him that always reminded me of a Catskills comedian,” said panelist Arnie Reisman, a TV writer and producer. “He was a great coach, and he just really understood what everybody was waiting for.”
Still, Mr. Sher counted on panelists to rise to the occasion during questions rife with wordplay or during the popular bluffing rounds, when one three-panelist team challenged the other to figure out which of three improbable stories was true. “Richard was really depending on the fact that we would never leave any pause pregnant,” Reisman said.
Listeners might get the impression that the panelists were walking Wikipedias, but that wasn’t the case, said former TV consumer reporter Paula Lyons, a panelist who is married to Reisman. On one vacation, the couple tried to play trivia at a bar and fared poorly. “That’s when we realized that Richard tailored questions to the strengths of each of us,” she said. “He was far more of a directing genius than we knew.”
Mr. Sher “really orchestrated the chemistry among all of us. It was extraordinary,” said Carolyn Faye Fox, a panelist and contributing editor to The Improper Bostonian. “He would encourage us and he really loved off-the-wall answers, too.”
When “pirates” was a category in one show, Mr. Sher “told Carolyn that her answer was wrong,” Lyons recalled, “and then Carolyn, who is a punster extraordinaire, said, ‘Oh, I don’t believe my buccaneers.’ I thought Richard was going to collapse on the stage at that moment. He laughed so long and so hard.”
Born in Easton, Pa., Mr. Sher was the only child of Albert and Jeanne Sher, who ran a toy store. “He was a Jewish boy who grew up with Christmas as the essential focus in his life,” said his wife, Laura Price Sher.
“As an only child,” she added, “Richard truly collected people. Other people collected stamps. Richard collected people.”
Mr. Sher stayed in touch with friends from all points in life, whether they were children he walked to school with in kindergarten or college fraternity brothers. He also had a remarkable memory for names and birthdays. “He’d get up and almost every morning there was a birthday call he had to make,” she said. “It was never written down. It was in that head.”
His mother, who was a contract player in bridge games, used to gather children from the neighborhood on the back steps of the family’s house and quiz them, Laura said, turning answering questions into a game and the act of learning “into a sheer pleasure.”
Mr. Sher, who graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., became a certified optician and was working in that field when he got a master’s from the Boston University College of Communication.
He worked as a producer on Boston TV shows such as “Chronicle” and “Evening Magazine,” through which he became friends with future “Says You!” panelists. Mr. Sher also was president of a marketing and development company when he began to be disillusioned in the late-1990s by the trends in television toward violence-based shows.
“I said, ‘What did you love doing before you did “Evening Magazine,” before you did segments on “Chronicle”? ’ He said, ‘I loved doing radio,’ so I said, ‘Well, do radio,’ ” his wife recalled.
They were married in 1996, the year Mr. Sher put together “Says You!” Their son, Ben, grew up as part of the show, serving occasionally as scorekeeper and doing voice-overs.
Mr. Sher was devoted to his son, driving him to school and attending every event possible. When work took him out of town, his wife said, he would pause the taping to take phone calls with results of his son’s sports contests.
With an eye toward producing shows with lasting appeal, even in repeats, Mr. Sher carefully edited out topical references. And while scheduled shows in Vermont have been postponed, Laura said “Says You!” plans to continue. “This truly is an ensemble,” said Laura, a program producer for the show. “While Richard has been the lead in that, this is an ensemble strong enough to go on.”
A service will be announced for Mr. Sher, who leaves his wife and son.
“He was just a unique genius in a very quirky way. He had a kind of very special personal relationship with all of us,” said panelist Francine Achbar, who has been a TV writer, producer, and executive.
“He was a mensch,” said Tony Kahn, former host of the radio news program “The World,” who also wrote in a tribute that Mr. Sher “believed that the best jokes were the ones you minted that moment.”
On air, Mr. Sher once asked Kahn to define the difference between lurid and tawdry. “About $25,” Kahn answered.
Other shows featured questions such as “What are you if you are blissfully or mollusktorially content?” The answer: happy as a clam.
“The whole point of the show is that it doesn’t matter how hard a question is,” Mr. Sher told the Globe in 2006. “The whole point is that you’ll slap your thigh and say, ‘Oh I could’ve gotten that!’ ”
End Quote
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Feb 13, 2015 12:30:13 GMT -5
Post by rogesgallery on Feb 13, 2015 12:30:13 GMT -5
Wasn't he broadcasting his quirky, humorist, politically centrist oddity of a show from London of late? Deep melodic voice,somewhat suggestively dark background music.
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Feb 13, 2015 23:56:35 GMT -5
Post by joew on Feb 13, 2015 23:56:35 GMT -5
When there wasn't a Boston Symphony broadcast following APHC, I very much enjoyed listening to "Says You." They may be able to keep the show going, but it's hard to imagine that a new host will be able to craft questions suited to individual panelists.
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Mar 30, 2015 23:31:53 GMT -5
Post by slb2 on Mar 30, 2015 23:31:53 GMT -5
I bought last week's Navajo Times today (OK, sometimes I am slow, I admit it) and the headline was "Nez gets the sendoff a code talker deserves." Some interesting points from the story: The funeral cortege was over two miles long. The State of New Mexico closed the entire freeway from Albuquerque (site of the funeral service) to Santa Fe (site of the burial) for all vehicles except funeral traffic - must be at least 40 miles. Friends and family thought Nez would have gotten a big kick from the beautiful bouquet of white roses and carnations sent by the Boston Red Sox. Chester Nez broke the Curse of the Bambino in 2004 when he threw out the opening pitch when the Red Sox played the Yankees, and he also gave a traditional Navajo blessing to the Red Sox. The Red Sox came from behind a 0 - 3 deficit (it was best-of-seven) to beat the Yankees and then went on to beat the Cardinals. The team has always credited their victory to Chester Nez. All New Mexico state flags were flown at half-mast on June 10, in honor of Nez and the other 28 original code talkers. This was done through an executive order from Governor Martinez, and the order was issued in the Navajo language. The family hadn't planned on such a large funeral (nearly 1,000 mourners in attendance) and were overwhelmed by the expenses. In fact, Navajo generally don't plan and set aside money for funerals, as such doings conflict with their traditional beliefs. The Chester Nez Memorial Fund has been established to help with the expenses, and contributions may be made at any Bank of America branch. I suspect and hope that the need was met as soon as the announcement was made. Quite a man. He was really something. All 29 of the original code talkers were remarkable, creating the only war time code that was never broken, saving our nation from who-knows-what fate. I am reading Code Talkers by Joseph Bruchac and learning so very much about the Navajo nation and their beliefs. We know so little and there's a big world out there to discover. www.amazon.com/Code-Talker-Novel-Navajo-Marines/dp/0142405965
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Jun 4, 2015 19:12:57 GMT -5
Post by doctork on Jun 4, 2015 19:12:57 GMT -5
I've been meaning to note here the passing of Beau Biden, VP Joe Biden's 46 year old son, leaving a wife and two young children, and many others who will miss him.
It seems especially tragic in this family. VP Biden lost his wife and daughter to a car crash shortly after he was elected to his first term as senator. Now he's lost another "child."
All due to a brain tumor - lot of that going around lately.
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Jun 13, 2015 19:12:51 GMT -5
slb2 likes this
Post by doctork on Jun 13, 2015 19:12:51 GMT -5
This may be a bit obscure, but Jim Ed Brown passed away on Thursday at age 81. He had just this past March been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, although the ceremony won't happen until October. However, because Jim Ed was so sick, they gave him his CMA medallion in the hospital last week.
He was best known for his part in the group The Browns, singing with his two sisters. Their biggest hit was in 1959, called "The Three Bells." I have always loved that song. It was a cross-over hit, on both the pop charts as well as the country music charts, and it ushered in the folk music era, as The Browns had a country-folk sound.
Here in NC, I often listen to Blue Country 98, aka "Classic Country." I don't care much for the modern "country music" but I do love the traditional musicians - Doc Watson, the Carters, Ralph Stanley. That's what this station plays, along with tunes I consider malt shop oldies" - Johnny Horton, The Browns, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson.
So I will note the passing of Jim Ed Brown, but with musicians and other artists, at least you still have their music, though they are gone.
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Jan 18, 2016 22:04:53 GMT -5
Post by doctork on Jan 18, 2016 22:04:53 GMT -5
Another loss of a great musician - Glenn Frey of the Eagles has died at age 67.
I have always loved the Eagles, and have always attended their concerts when they were nearby, probably at least a half dozen over the years.
Back in 2004, a little too soon after my brain tumor surgery for independent travel, I went to a Monday - Friday medical meeting in Las Vegas. Ordinarily, I would have just stayed and enjoyed the weekend once the meeting ended, but that year I decided it would be better to go home right after the meeting ended, "unless there was something really special happening - like an Eagles concert."
Lo and behold, there was an Eagles concert that weekend at the MGM Grand Hotel, so I bought tickets and stayed in Las Vegas. I had to "phone a friend" to come help me out for a couple days, but I wasn't going to miss the Eagles!
Now I'll miss them, but as I mentioned above, we'll always have their music.
Sigh...I guess we're getting older.
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Jan 19, 2016 10:04:05 GMT -5
Post by BoatBabe on Jan 19, 2016 10:04:05 GMT -5
//Sigh...I guess we're getting older.\\
Ain't that the truth.
But Ziggy won't be counting earth years anymore either.
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Jan 19, 2016 13:47:07 GMT -5
Post by Jane on Jan 19, 2016 13:47:07 GMT -5
And Alan Rickman as well. If it always comes in threes, maybe we're done for awhile.
When I lived in Royal Oak, the woman next door went to school with Glen Frey. (Oddly enough, on the other side of our house lived Tom Hayden's mother/Jane Fonda's mother-in-law). Very fleeting brushes with greatness.
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Nov 20, 2016 23:02:21 GMT -5
Post by doctork on Nov 20, 2016 23:02:21 GMT -5
It's been a bad week for losses. Things kind of squished together during the cruise so maybe it was more than one week but I note the passing of:
Leonard Cohen Leon Russell Gwen Ifill
My heart is hurting.
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Nov 24, 2016 12:09:39 GMT -5
Post by joew on Nov 24, 2016 12:09:39 GMT -5
Back when I watched TV, I thought Gwen Ifill was very good.
I wasn't aware of Leonard Cohen until he died, but the articles I've seen portray a very profound man.
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Nov 24, 2016 13:10:01 GMT -5
Post by doctork on Nov 24, 2016 13:10:01 GMT -5
A profound;y spiritual man and an incredible artist/poet/musician, perceptive in his understanding of humanity.
In 1968 I spent the summer at Cornell University for an educational program for select high school students between their junior and senior years. The program was held on-campus at Telluride House (my "connection" to a group of people as varied as Walter Isaacson and Paul Wolfowitz) and my roommate and I occupied an attic "dorm room" said to have been dwelt in by Leonard Cohen when he visited the campus. It felt as though his spirit was still palpable in the room. His music was starting to be popular and his poetry was already well-known and respected, at least at Cornell. The rest of my life I have feel an odd attachment to Cohen's work and it has shown up with synchronicity in my life, and I somehow felt he would just live forever. I feel a personal heart wound with his passing, but perhaps he does live forever in that we still have his work.
Now I know how my mother must have felt when she commented to me on the passing of some musician or actor she had liked. To me it was "Some old guy died. No doh." To her it was much different.
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Nov 24, 2016 13:33:59 GMT -5
Post by Jane on Nov 24, 2016 13:33:59 GMT -5
"Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in."
from Anthem by Leonard Cohen
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