Our Daily Dead

From the LA Times comes that Lilly Rodriguez has died at age 59. Lilly was a former martial arts champion who helped open up kickboxing for women. Rodriguez, who owned the Heart of Champions gym in Sylmar, died Jan. 13 at UCLA Medical Center of complications relating to an infection, her family said.

Lilly is the sister of Benny “The Jet” Urquidez.

The Women Boxing Archive Network says that Rodriguez “…was one of the most versatile featherweights in women’s boxing in the 70’s and early 80’s. She had already made great strides and successes as a kickboxer, and came from a famous family that pioneered kickboxing. She was a very talented fighter that could excite the crowd so much that they would literally throw money into the ring.”

“Some highlights of Rodriguez’ career included being one of the first women to fight on the All-women boxing card in California on July 13, 1979. She also can be credited for fighting at the infamous Madison Square Garden where the ABC Wide World of Sports covered the event.”

See also the writeup from the Boxing In Las Vegas web site.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: LA Times, Lilly Rodriguez, died, martial arts, champion, kickboxing, women, Heart of Champions, The Jet, Madison Square Garden, ABC Wide World of Sports

From the Asbury Park Press we read that “…Scott “Bam Bam” Bigelow, a former wrestler at Neptune High School, was found dead Friday morning at his home in Hudson, Fla.”.

Scott Bigelow, 45, worked for World Wrestling Entertainment, Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling throughout his 20-year sports-entertainment career. A former ECW champion, ECW television champion and WCW tag-team champion, he is perhaps best known for his rivalry with Lawrence Taylor that culminated in the main event at WrestleMania XI in 1995.

See also JR Remembers Bam Bam Bigelow

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Asbury Park, Bam Bam, wrestler, dead, Scott Bigelow, Extreme Championship Wrestling, ECW, WCW, Lawrence Taylor, WrestleMania

From the OC Register comes word that

Brent Liles, early Social Distortion bassist, was killed by big rig in Placentia California.

Liles played bass on the group’s groundbreaking “Mommy’s Little Monster” recording in 1983 and went on to play with other well-known Orange County punk acts such as the group Agent Orange. He was 43.

“Brent was a fun-loving guy who approached his bass playing with a lot of enthusiasm and that made him a lot of fun to be around,” said Frank Agnew, a fellow musician and friend.

Liles, wearing casual clothing, was riding a small dirt bicycle westbound on Orangethorpe Avenue just after 11:30 a.m. Thursday, California Highway Patrol officials said.

As he entered the crosswalk at the Orange (57) Freeway, a big rig carrying a trailer turned right onto the on-ramp and accelerated, hitting Liles. He was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.

The driver, Javier Lopez of Rancho Cucamonga, was turning on a green light. He was not immediately cited, CHP officials said. The crash is still being investigated.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Social Distortion, punk, Agent Orange, Frank Agnew, musician, CHP

There are things to do in Denver when you aren’t dead. Check into the new Tribal Paths: Colorado’s American Indians, 1500 to Today exhibit for example.

Or if you find yourself in Philly, then head into the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see Thomas Eakins’ The Gross Clinic exhibit. The museum PR says “The Gross Clinic, acclaimed as the greatest American painting of the nineteenth century, has been an icon of Philadelphia since it was painted in 1875.”

Omaha? You’re in Omaha? Well, try the Omaha Old Market then. Pick us up some steaks too while your there will you?

What about spending time in Fargo? Try visiting the Trollwood Park at Broadway/37th Ave. N. Our birthday(s) are due soon so get us a bangle or two will you?

There you stood
on the edge of your feather,
Expecting to fly.
While I laughed,
I wondered whether
I could wave goodbye,
Knowin’ that you’d gone.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Denver, Tribal Paths, Colorado, Thomas Eakins, Gross Clinic, Philadelphia, Omaha, steaks, Fargo, Trollwood Park, Expecting to fly

From the NY Times….Ron Carey, comic actor, dies at 71. He died of a stroke at a hospital near his home, a nephew, Michael Ciccolini, said.

“Ron Carey was the pint-sized, round-faced comic best known as the unjustifiably cocky Police Officer Carl Levitt on the long-running television situation comedy ‘Barney Miller’.”

“At 5-foot-4 and with traces of an inner-city New Joisey accent, Mr. Carey played a plainclothes cop constantly seeking a promotion by currying favor with his superiors. “

“‘Barney Miller,’ which ran from 1976 to 1982, starred Hal Linden as the captain of a New York City police precinct whose officers dealt with the zany characters who came, not always by choice, into the station house. Mr. Carey, as Officer Levitt, would inject unsolicited opinions on how to handle whoever was in the holding cell. Besides playing roles in other less successful sitcoms, Mr. Carey appeared in 15 movies, including ‘High Anxiety’ in 1977 and ‘History of the World: Part I’ in 1981, both with Mel Brooks.”

Ah yes, Barney Miller. Take us back a year or two to perhaps 1977-8 or so and the happy little burg of McKinleyville, CA. One of us ODDfellows shared a house in that fine burg with a couple other mates. Seems the house was backed up to the freeway thus we had the logging trucks for melodious background noise. The house was also a touch damp and drafty and most winter nights it seemed that the Humboldt fog would creep right inside with the three of us. And there we’d be each hunkered down under our respective sleeping bags watching Barney Miller. The other two worked on crab boats out of Trinidad harbor so many nights we dined on fresh Dungeness crab - “Oh damn, crab again” - and sipped martinis. And here we thought there was something more and better to life.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Ron Carey, dies, died, Carl Levitt, Barney Miller, Hal Linden, Mel Brooks

You’ve got to like the title over at the DailyRecord.com anyway: Obi: No More Kenobi. Seems not-so-young-anymore Star Wars hunk Ewan McGregor says he’s too old to strip off on screen.

“And until now, the 35-year-old has managed to fool the camera.”

“He told Radio 1 listeners: ‘I’ve found ways to cheat the ageing process. I shave my chest because having it hairy makes me look older.’” Run out and get your copy of Trainspotting for the ultimate in kenobi-less Ewan.

And perhaps when he decides enough is enough he’ll change his name Eeeew-an McGregor to alert us all.

And then again perhaps you’ll run into ol’ non-hairy chested and kenobi-less Ewan while your whiling away the hours on vacation at The Terra Cotta Inn. As an ODD public service announcement please consider the following when you are planning your next vacation:

This Year Make a “Nude Year’s” Resolution to Vacation at the Terra Cotta Inn Clothing Optional Resort in Sunny Palm Springs, CA.

The press release further informs us that “The best modern nudist resorts are actually clothing optional places, so that first timers feel comfortable easing into nude sunbathing at their own pace.” And there is more as they offer a “Complementary California breakfast and afternoon snack spread.” Remember…ease into it and try to feel comfortable. Don’t go expecting a comfortable feel, however, even with your complimentary afternoon spread.

Ok and finally, just to wrap things up, we do believe that while you are getting the all over tan with Mr. McGregor you might do a bit of reading. We suggest you try Spy: The Funny Years. Oh and a bit of a warning: have care and wear your Ultimate Panic Sunglasses if you go perusing the clothing optional vacation spot web sites. Seems to us, not that we looked of course, that everyone shown looks like your Mom’s Auntie Grace and Uncle Elbert.

And one ODDcorrection. Away back Sherman we mentioned something about “bulldart” fence posts. Fact is these little beauties are actually called a bois d’arc fence posts after the Bois d’Arc trees of Texas. You need to know these things and that is why we bring them out of hiding. Especially if you are writing songs about Oklahoma family reunions (including some thoughts on sister twistin’), Choctaw Bingo or setting about to build an Osage Bow

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Star Wars, Ewan McGregor, strip, Trainspotting, Nude, Vacation, Terra Cotta Inn, Clothing Optional, Palm Springs, nudist, spread, Spy, bois d’arc, Texas, sister twistin, Choctaw Bingo, Osage

From the Washington Post…Art Buchwald, 81, the newspaper humor columnist for more than a half-century who found new comic material in the issues that come up at the end of life, died of kidney failure last night at his son’s home in Washington, his family announced today.

“Buchwald, an owlish, cigar-chomping extrovert, zinged the high, mighty and humor-challenged. His column, syndicated to more than 550 newspapers at one point, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1982. He also published more than 30 books.”

“Most of his books were collections of his columns, which were syndicated by the Los Angeles Times and appeared in The Washington Post. Two of his books ‘Leaving Home’(1993) and ‘I’ll Always Have Paris!’ (1996) were memoirs. They told the story of his journey from a lonely, impoverished childhood lived largely in foster homes, to the salons of the famous.”

“His entertaining, name-dropping memoirs — published in a period when some said his column was losing its edge — also won him new respect in the publishing world. Although he had been elected in 1991 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he said in a 1996 interview that ‘people don’t take humorists seriously; they don’t even call them writers.’”

“His children, he said, were initially upset with his decision to turn down dialysis treatments last year, but he insisted that he preferred to control his last days, which lasted longer than even he expected.”

“‘I don’t know if this is true or not, but I think some people, not many, are starting to wonder why I’m still around,’ he wrote while in the hospice. ‘In fact, a few are sending me get-well cards. These are the hard ones to answer.”

“‘So far things are going my way. I am known in the hospice as The Man Who Wouldn’t Die. How long they allow me to stay here is another problem. I don’t know where I’d go now, or if people would still want to see me if I weren’t in a hospice. But in case you’re wondering, I’m having a swell time — the best time of my life.’”

And thanks to Mr. Infospigot for this head’s up!: ‘The New York Times has a great video interview with Buchwald, done last July. He starts out by saying, “Hello, I’m Art Buchwald, and I just died.” It’s four parts, something like 10 or 12 minutes total–good stuff.’

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Washington Post, Art Buchwald, died, kidney failure, Pulitzer Prize

From the LA Times…Thornton ‘Pookie’ Hudson lead singer, songwriter of the Spaniels has died at age 72 of complications from cancer of the thymus at his home in Capitol Heights, Md.

Hudson, a native of Des Moines, Iowa, who grew up in Gary, Ind., formed an R&B vocal harmony group in the early 1950s with high school classmates, including the late bass singer Gerald Gregory. The Spaniels’ first hit was “Baby It’s You” in 1953 for Vee-Jay, an early black-owned recording label.

Hudson, a tenor, wrote “Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight,” which reached No. 5 on the R&B chart in 1954, No. 24 on the pop chart.

“I was going with this girl, and I used to walk home from her house late at night,” Hudson recalled years later. “As I walked, I put the song together in my head because that’s what her mother was always telling me — ‘Well, it’s 3 in the morning, and it’s time for you to go.’ “

See also RockLibrary.com for a write up on the 2005 Doo-Wopp Hall of Fame inductees, including the Spaniels. Pookie Hudson and the Spaniels also performed at the event.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Pookie, Spaniels, died, R&B, Vee-Jay, Pookie Hudson, Spaniels

Jazz virtuoso Michael Becker is dead at age 57. Becker died of leukemia, which was an effect of his long battle with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a form of cancer that attacks bone marrow.

LiveDaily.com had this to say about Becker:

“An active studio musician, Brecker appeared on more than 900 recordings in his career, with artists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa. He began his career in the late ’60s with the fusion group Dreams, then joined with his brother, trumpeter Randy Brecker, to become The Brecker Brothers for much of the ’70s.”

“Brecker’s commercial breakthrough came in 1972, when the tenor-sax virtuoso performed a solo on James Taylor’s hit ‘Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight.’ Throughout the decade that followed, Brecker found himself in demand by pop artists.”

“Surprisingly, Brecker didn’t release an album under his own name until 1987. The self-titled disc won jazz album of the year awards in many publications.”

“Brecker went on to release several more solo albums, including his most recent, 2003’s ‘Wide Angles,’ on which the saxophonist leads a 15-piece ensemble in performing his own compositions. The album took home Grammy Awards the following year for Best Large Jazz Ensemble and Best Instrumental Arrangement.”

You may read more over at the Michael Brecker official website.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Michael Becker, dead, myelodysplastic syndrome, Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, Randy Brecker, The Brecker Brothers, James Taylor, Grammy