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2010-04-04T12:15:00.001-04:00

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Why is it that 8 years later, people are saying what I was saying then?

2010-01-04T22:24:00.002-05:00

The DHS was conceived and built as a blackhole for county, city, state, and federal government funds to be squandered under the auspices of "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." I've called bullshit for years and I will continue to do so.

DHS is a gaping, pus-filled, cankerous sore on the ass of the United States' economy and persona. Yet the majority still buy into the fear-mongering.

Enlightenment is just a click away.

Five Years, SDMF

2009-12-08T01:33:00.002-05:00

Five Long Years

Onward towards forever. Oh, and FUCK YOU FOR ETERNITY, NATHAN GALE!! Also not to ever be forgotten: Nathan Bray of Columbus Erin Halk of northwest Columbus Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson of Texas

Never Shall I Fail My Comrades...

2009-11-11T01:50:00.001-05:00

Can someone please explain this?

2009-11-07T02:43:00.002-05:00

As we arrived at a local Asian restaurant and were seated at our tables. The above is what I saw. Full-size images provided for close inspection.

2009-11-04T00:00:00.001-05:00

I'm wondering if this will post to both blogs now that this phone is linked to both of them. Hmmmmmm...

Windows Live Writer test for Blogger and my blog

2009-10-25T15:53:00.000-04:00

I’ve already managed to link my Motorola Q9H to this blog, now I’m attempting to post to my blog without being logged into a browser.

Lets hope it all goes well. There are many bells and whistles that I’ll be attempting to use/implement/not destroy my blog. Wish me luck, or whatever.

Power Shift 09

2009-10-19T22:43:00.006-04:00

While I argue/fight mostly against the side of government that is set on abolishing civil liberties and making the Constitution obsolete, it cannot be forgotten that there are some very important folks out there who are on the front lines for the environment and the adoption of alternate energy sources.

Not that I'm not for those things, it's just that I choose to put my "energies" to work in other areas. One is no more important than the other, and neither is something to be dismissed. There are those whom I consider my friends that are working endlessly on making Powershift09 the most important event on people's minds this month. They do all of this while studying, taking exams, and working their asses off in their respective areas of study. They, more often than not, sacrifice any type of "free time" to make sure that there is no slack to take up. You have to admire and respect them for their efforts. And make no mistake, they are making a difference.

This is my small effort to get the word out and help my friends in every way that I can.

My hat is off to you guys.

RIP

2009-10-03T10:45:00.003-04:00

10.3.93

Lest we forget, our brothers and our benefactors...

2009-06-06T10:38:00.003-04:00

June 6, 1944

No exit strategy. Victory at all costs.

No Mission Too Difficult
No Sacrifice Too Great
Duty First
Danger Forward

Memorial Day 2009

2009-05-24T20:59:00.002-04:00

Thank you.

Welcome Back...

2009-03-23T16:28:00.003-04:00

If you are like soooooo many MS Office 2007 users who absolutely fell on your face with the new interface, have no fear, Old Menus are here. That's right. There's a free plug-in called UBitMenu that restores your old, long-lost friend, the MS Office interface that you loved so dearly.

The kicker is that it doesn't replace the ribbon styled menus of the new Office, it works in conjunction with them. Will this keep you from advancing and not learn the new menus? Who knows. And, more than likely, you don't care either.

You may now return to your previously, less-pissed-off, self.

...Good Day.

2009-03-02T06:40:00.002-05:00

'Rest of the Story' Host Became Most Familiar Voice in American Radio

By LINDA ZECCHINO and DEAN SCHABNER
March 1, 2009—

The "most listened to man" in broadcasting passed away Saturday. After more than seven decades on the air, venerable radioman Paul Harvey's folksy speech and plain talk are no more.

Harvey died at the age of 90 at a hospital near his winter home in Phoenix.

His death came nine months after that of his wife, Lynne Cooper Harvey, whom he often called "Angel" on air, and who was also his business partner and the first producer ever inducted in the the Radio Hall of Fame. She died in May 2008 at age 92.

"My father and mother created from thin air what one day became radio and television news," Paul Harvey Jr. said Saturday. "So, in the past year, an industry has lost its godparents. And, today millions have lost a friend."

Harvey's career in radio spanned more than 70 years, and his shows "News & Comment" and "Rest of the Story" made him a familiar voice in Americans' homes across the country.

From his humble beginnings as a teenager helping out cleaning up at a local radio station, Harvey went on to have his broadcasts carried by 1,350 commercial radio stations, as well as 400 stations of the Armed Forces Radio Service, and he was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1990.

"Paul Harvey was one of the most gifted and beloved broadcasters in our nation's history," said ABC Radio Networks President Jim Robinson in a statement released Saturday. "As he delivered the news each day with his own unique style and commentary, his voice became a trusted friend in American households.

"Countless millions of listeners were both informed and entertained by his 'News & Comment' and 'Rest of the Story' features," Robinson said. "Even after the passing of his loving wife Angel in May 2008, Paul would not slip quietly into retirement as he continued to take the microphone and reach out to his audience. We will miss our dear friend tremendously and are grateful for the many years we were so fortunate to have known him. Our thoughts and prayers are now with his son Paul Jr. and the rest of the Harvey family."

Former President George W. Bush said he and former first lady Laura Bush were saddened to hear of Harvey's death. "Paul was a friendly and familiar voice in the lives of millions of Americans," Bush said in a statement released late today. "His commentary entertained, enlightened, and informed. Laura and I are pleased to have known this fine man, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family."

Bush presented Harvey with the nation's highest civilian honor, the medal of freedom, in November 2005.

Harvey entertained and informed generations of Americans by paying attention to the people and places most others overlooked.

Born in Oklahoma in 1918, he was broadcasting from Tulsa by age 14. His love and respect for simple American values permeated his broadcasts, and he celebrated that life.

"Emporia, Kan., is home to this state's national champion honeymooners: Margaret and Joe Pearson," he said in one broadcast. "Theirs has endured 72 years."

Harvey started working at a local radio station at the suggestion of one of his high school teachers. He started out just helping clean up, but soon was on the air himself, filling in with reading the news or commercials.

After a stint at radio station KFBI in Abilene, Kansas, he moved to KXOK in St. Louis.

By 1940, Paul Harvey's easy wit and laconic speech made him Chicago's most popular newscaster and gave him his own show.

He also settled down with Cooper, whom he had met the year before. Harvey said he invited her to dinner, proposed to her after a few minutes of conversation and from that moment on called her Angel.

Cooper was credited with coming up with many of the programming innovations that became Harvey's trademarks.

Among her ideas were the concepts of including news features within hard-news broadcasts and the humorous "kicker," which became a Paul Harvey trademark. She also developed and edited her husband's best-known feature, "The Rest of the Story."

In 1951, "Paul Harvey News" went national with broadcasts stretching coast-to-coast and reaching millions of listeners each night. Though he broadcast six days a week for more than half a century, it never seemed like hard work.

His gift for drawing in listeners and making them see what he did was an art form.

Harvey explained it simply: "As a boy, I fell in love with words and ran away from home and joined the radio. And it really was something."

By the early 1960's, Harvey was trying his hand at television. He conducted interviews from the floor of the Republican National Convention in Chicago. Angel produced the 1968 television series "Paul Harvey Comments" that ran without interruption for 20 years in national syndication.

But television was not quite suited to Harvey's brand of storytelling. In a medium meant to convey images, his power was in conjuring them out of thin air. He, better than anyone, understood this and said as much in a speech he gave in 2003.

"You trust me to paint pictures on the mirror of your mind," he said, "and I will let you feel such agony and ecstasy ... as you would never be able to feel by looking at it."

Over the years, Harvey won nearly every honor or accolade imaginable. He was named Salesman of the Year, Commentator of the Year, Person of the Year, Father of the Year, and American of the Year. He was elected to the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Hall of Fame and Oklahoma Hall of Fame and appeared on the Gallup poll list of America's most admired men.

In addition he has received 11 Freedom Foundation Awards as well as the Horatio Alger Award. In 2005, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' most prestigious civilian award, by President George W. Bush.

Paul Harvey's particular style relied on exaggerated pronunciation, pregnant pauses, delayed revelations and a staccato delivery. His quirky openings and catchphrases were often parodied -- "Hello, Americans, this is Paul Harvey! Stand by & for News!" -- but his rapt audience ate it up.

This devoted following made him an advertiser's dream: He could as effortlessly weave a pitch into his program as he could capture images in words that lingered in his listeners' minds.

His programs, "News and Comment" and "The Rest of the Story", were carried on the ABC Radio Network and could be heard Monday through Saturday for more than five decades. "The Rest of the Story," a look behind the stories of events and people, was developed and produced by Harvey's only son, Paul, Jr.

At the age of 82, when most broadcasters have long been off the air, Paul Harvey signed a 10-year contract with ABC Radio in 2000. An executive with another network, who had hoped to sign Harvey to a deal, said "Call me when the contract's over so I can try again."

Traug Keller, then president of ABC Radio Networks, explained the rationale behind the 10-year deal.

"Paul Harvey is, without question, one of the most influential Americans of our time," Keller said. "In fact, political adviser and communications specialist Frank Mankiewicz noted that Paul Harvey's name appears most often in lists of the 10 most influential opinion-shapers of each decade since the 1930s."

Harvey's voice was carried on more than 1,200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations that broadcast around the world and 300 newspapers.

The program also aired twice daily on the Internet, bringing the wit and wisdom of Paul Harvey to a whole new audience.

All told, with more than 25 million listeners tuned in each week, Paul Harvey was the largest one-man network in the world.

A Chicagoan throughout his life, Paul Harvey resisted offers to move the broadcasts to New York.

"That would never have been a good choice; I would have lost touch with so much of the country had I done that," he told The Chicago Tribune in 2002. "From here I think I can see the world with a wider lens."

Fellow broadcaster Bob Sirott summed up Harvey's longevity to The Tribune succinctly and simply: "He stands for the America that sits west of the Hudson."

Good day, Paul Harvey. Good day.

I miss you, my brothers.

2009-02-26T21:43:00.002-05:00

I'll run harder tomorrow, because you cannot.

One of the greatest, ever.

2009-01-15T07:38:00.003-05:00

I post obits here regularly. Sometimes I miss one or two; sometimes I pass over some. Today, I feel as though I have lost a family member. His influence upon me at an early age cannot be ignored. Even my love for open-wheeled cars was born from his imagination.

I am not a number, I am a free man!

Rest Easy, Number 1

Patrick McGoohan dies at 80; TV's 'Secret Agent' and 'Prisoner'
The actor often played villains on TV and in movies. But he gained his greatest fame as the TV spy John Drake. He also won two Emmys for 'Columbo.'
By Dennis McLellan

January 15, 2009

Patrick McGoohan, a two-time Emmy Award-winning actor who starred as a British spy in the 1960s TV series "Secret Agent" and gained cult status later in the decade as the star of the enigmatic series "The Prisoner," has died. He was 80.

McGoohan, whose career involved stage, screen and TV, died Tuesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica after a short illness, said Cleve Landsberg, McGoohan's son-in-law. The family did not provide further details.

It was the height of James Bond mania in 1965 when McGoohan showed up on American TV screens in "Secret Agent," a British-produced series in which he played John Drake, a special security agent working as a spy for the British government.

The hourlong series, which ran on CBS until 1966, was an expanded version of “Danger Man,” a short-lived, half-hour series on CBS in 1961 in which McGoohan played the same character.

But it was McGoohan's next British-produced series, “The Prisoner,” on CBS in 1968 and 1969, that became a cult classic that spawned fan clubs, conventions and college study.

Once described in The Times as an "espionage tale as crafted by Kafka," "The Prisoner" starred McGoohan as a presumed British agent who, after resigning his top-security job, is abducted in London and taken to a mysterious prison resort called the Village.

Known only as No. 6, he is interrogated by a succession of officials who are known as No. 2. But he refuses all methods of breaking him down to reveal his past or why he resigned, and he repeatedly makes failed attempts to escape.

The seemingly idyllic village contains "seeing eyes" that monitor activities and signs such as "A Still Tongue Makes a Peaceful Life."

McGoohan co-created and executive-produced the series, which ran for only 17 episodes, as well as wrote and directed several episodes.

In a 1967 interview with The Times, he described the series as "Brave New World" stuff.

"Nobody has a name, everyone wears a number," he said. "It's a reflection of the pressure on all of us today to be numbered, to give up our individualism. This is a contemporary subject, not science fiction. I hope these things will be recognized by the audience. It's not meant to be subtle. It's meant to say: This little village is our world."

Of the enduring cult status of the series, McGoohan once said: "Mel [Gibson] will always be Mad Max, and me, I will always be a number."

McGoohan, who reportedly turned down an offer to be the big screen's original James Bond, appeared in films such as "The Three Lives of Thomasina," "Mary, Queen of Scots," "Silver Streak," "Escape From Alcatraz," "Scanners," "Ice Station Zebra" and Gibson's "Braveheart," in which he played England's sadistic King Edward I.

In his review of "Braveheart" in The Times, critic Peter Rainer wrote: "Patrick McGoohan is in possession of perhaps the most villainous enunciation in the history of acting."

As a guest star on Peter Falk's TV detective series "Columbo," McGoohan won Emmys in 1975 and 1990.

Falk once described McGoohan, who also occasionally worked as a director and writer on the "Columbo" mysteries, as being "mesmerizing" as an actor.

"There are many very, very talented people in this business, but there are only a handful of genuinely original people," Falk told the Hollywood Reporter in 2004. "I think Patrick McGoohan belongs in that small select group of truly original people."

He was born to Irish parents in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., on March 19, 1928. Some months later, his family returned to Ireland, where he grew up on a farm before moving to Sheffield, England, when he was 7.

In the late '40s, after working a number of jobs, he became a stage manager at Sheffield Repertory Theatre, where he soon launched his acting career.

In 1951, he married actress Joan Drummond, with whom he had three daughters, Catherine, Anne and Frances.

In 1959, he received a London Drama Critics Award for his performance in a London stage production of Ibsen's "Brand."

On television, McGoohan also starred in the short-lived 1977 medical drama "Rafferty."

Sharif Ali, McGoohan's agent, said McGoohan had been writing and had two acting offers on the table before he died.

"He really didn't talk much about his illness," said Ali. "We were too busy talking about his future; he was excited to get back to work. He had so much more to give."

In addition to his wife and daughters, McGoohan is survived by five grandchildren and a great-grandson.

Patrick McGoohan, an actor who created and starred in the cult classic TV show "The Prisoner," died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a short illness. He was 80.

His son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, announced the news Wednesday.

McGoohan starred in the 1960s CBS series "Secret Agent," and won two Emmys for his guest appearances on the detective drama "Columbo." Most recently he appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson Academy Award-winning film "Braveheart."

But he was most famous as the character known only as Number Six in "The Prisoner," a 1968 British series about a spy who resigns from the intelligence service, only to be abducted and held captive in a mysterious haven known as The Village. There his overseers strip him of his identity in their attempts to glean information, while thwarting his attempts to escape.

Prior to "The Prisoner," McGoohan starred in "Secret Agent" (also known as "Danger Man"), which debuted in 1964, and whose memorable theme song seemed to speak of the hazards facing the characters in both series ("They've given you a number, and taken away your name").

McGoohan's agent, Sharif Ali, said Wednesday that the actor was still active in Hollywood, with two offers for wide-release films on the table when he died. "The man was just cool," Ali said. "It was an honor to have him here and work with him. ... He was one of those actors, a real actor. He didn't have a lie."

Born in New York on March 19, 1928, McGoohan was raised in England and Ireland, where his family moved shortly after his birth. He had a busy stage career before moving to television, and won a London Drama Critics Award for playing the title role in the Henrik Ibsen play "Brand."

He married stage actress Joan Drummond in 1951. The oldest of their three daughters, Catherine, is also an actress.

After "Secret Agent"'s success," McGoohan pitched to producers the surreal and cerebral "The Prisoner" to give himself a challenge. McGoohan also wrote and directed several episodes of the series.

Although only 17 episodes were made, it became a cult favorite, and its cultural impact continues, as evident by his guest appearance playing Number Six in a 2000 episode of "The Simpsons."

The show is being remade as a series for AMC to premiere later this year.

"His creation of 'The Prisoner' made an indelible mark on the sci-fi, fantasy and political thriller genres, creating one of the most iconic characters of all time," AMC said in a statement Wednesday. "AMC hopes to honor his legacy in our re-imagining of 'The Prisoner.'"

Later came smaller roles in film and television. McGoohan won Emmys for guest spots on "Columbo" 16 years apart, in 1974 and 1990.

His film credits include "Ice Station Zebra," the 1979 Clint Eastwood film "Escape from Alcatraz," the John Grisham courtroom drama "A Time To Kill," "Silver Streak," and "Scanners." He also starred in the 1963 Disney TV film "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh," playing an 18th century English country priest who thwarts the king's minions as a disguised avenger.

His last major role was in "Braveheart," in what The Associated Press called a "standout" performance as the brutal king who battles Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace, played by Gibson.

In his review of the film for the Los Angeles Times critic Peter Rainer said "McGoohan is in possession of perhaps the most villainous enunciation in the history of acting."

McGoohan is survived by his wife and three daughters.

Four Years, SDMF

2008-12-08T08:24:00.004-05:00

Oh, and FUCK YOU, NATHAN GALE!!

Also not to ever be forgotten:

Nathan Bray of Columbus
Erin Halk of northwest Columbus
Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson of Texas

Damn... It's been a year already.

2008-11-19T11:58:00.002-05:00

RIP

Six degrees of "The Dude".

2008-09-30T08:43:00.003-04:00

Ok, so here we are, knee deep in the bullshit of presidential debates. I have made one observation that has now made every debate an even more entertaining laughing stock.

You've seen The Big Lebowski, right? Right. When John McCain answers any question, does he not remind you of Walter Sobchack (John Goodman)? I mean, regardless of the question asked, there's bitter little John with his marionette-like movements always returning to a war story that we've already heard in an effort to connect everything under the sun to his time as POW, never mind how off topic he is.

You think I'm kidding? Just keep an eye out for "Walter" the next time that little John makes a statement. All he's lacking is a .45 ACP, and we all know that under that leatherette skin of his, he's a gun grabbing dick just like the rest of 'em.

Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from Paul Newman

2008-09-27T12:41:00.002-04:00

Paul Newman, 83, the actor and sex symbol who surged to stardom by playing loners as well as criminal and moral outlaws -- anything to downplay his astonishing looks -- died of cancer Friday at his farmhouse near Westport, Conn.

Brooding and sinewy, with luminous blue eyes and a husky voice, Newman resembled a preppy Greek God in his earliest screen roles. He quickly rebelled against conventional casting that tried to turn him into a pretty-boy alternative to Marlon Brando and James Dean. He became known as an introspective and nonconformist performer -- a perfect anti-hero idol for the socially rebellious 1960s and 1970s.

In many of Newman's best films -- "The Hustler," "Hud," "Harper," "Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Sting," "Slap Shot," "The Verdict," "Nobody's Fool" and "The Color of Money" (for which he won the Oscar) -- he played amoral rats, genial louts, self-destructive idealists, drunkards and has-beens. Some of his characters redeem themselves by being defeated or killed, and others just continue bumming along.

Newman hated to see his characters triumph on charm alone. No one, he said, would pay money to see such a beautiful man win the woman and save the day. Off-screen, he mocked his sex-symbol status and said that his personality was closest to the vulgar, second-rate hockey coach he played in "Slap Shot" (1977). His approach likely saved his career as he matured into a disciplined performer, one of the most enduring and polished of screen stars.

At a peak of his fame, he gambled on directing small-budget films that often showcased his second wife, actress Joanne Woodward. Their film "Rachel, Rachel" (1968), with Woodward as an aging, virginal schoolteacher, was an unexpected hit.

They had a famously durable marriage. Newman spoke about their relationship by noting how they decided to act in the comedy "A New Kind of Love" (1963).

He told Time magazine: "Joanne read it and said, 'Hey this could be fun to do together. Read it.' And I read it and said, 'Joanne, it's just a bunch of one-liners.'

"And she said, 'You [expletive], I've been carting your children around, taking care of them, taking care of you and your house.' And I said, 'That is what I said. It's a terrific script. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do.' This is what is known as a reciprocal trade agreement."

Despite his powerhouse reputation, Newman had an uneven performance record as an actor. He starred in several critical and commercial duds, including his debut as a Greek slave in "The Silver Chalice" (1954), a role he called "the worst motion picture filmed during the fifties."

Nor was Newman at his best as a Mexican bandit in "The Outrage" (1964), a French anarchist opposite Sophia Loren in "Lady L" (1965) or a sci-fi wanderer in Robert Altman's "Quintet" (1979). He acted in a few disaster movies -- one set in a flaming skyscraper, the other about a volcano -- for the money. He also turned down promising parts if their shooting schedule interfered with his auto racing.

Persistently overlooked by the Academy Awards despite 10 total nominations, Newman won relatively late in his career: for best actor in "The Color of Money" (1986) as aging pool shark Fast Eddie Felson who is equal parts mentor to and manipulator of the character played by Tom Cruise. Newman had reprised the role of Fast Eddie Felson from "The Hustler" (1961).

Newman also received the 1986 honorary Oscar in part for "his personal integrity and dedication to his craft" and the 1994 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his philanthropic work.

Paul Leonard Newman was born Jan. 26, 1925, in Cleveland and raised in the affluent suburb of Shaker Heights. His father owned a sporting-goods store.

German Jewish on his father's side, Hungarian Catholic on his mother's, Newman once said he considered himself Jewish "because it is more challenging."

During World War II, he served as a Navy radioman in the Pacific. He had been turned down as a pilot because he was partially color blind.

After the war, he studied economics at Kenyon College in Ohio but preferred to say he graduated "magna cum lager" because of his barroom antics. One bar escapade landed him on the front page of a Cleveland newspaper, mortifying his parents.

Thrown off the football team after another bar fight, he turned to acting to find a way to channel his rambunctiousness and performed in summer stock and repertory work after his college graduation in 1949. He also attended Yale University's drama school before his looks helped him win several roles on television and his breakthrough part on Broadway.

Director Joshua Logan cast him as a wealthy playboy in William Inge's "Picnic," the drama about sexual tensions that erupt in a Midwestern town when a charismatic stranger arrives. Logan told Newman he could not possibly play the stranger because he did not "carry any sexual threat at all."

The part went to Ralph Meeker, a loss that motivated Newman to begin exercising regularly. Newman spent considerable time with the play's female lead, Joanne Woodward. He divorced his first wife, actress Jacqueline Witte, in 1957, leaving her with custody of their three children. He and Woodward married in 1958, and they did 15 movies and television projects together. She survives him, along with their three daughters and two daughters from his first marriage.

While in "Picnic," Newman joined the Actors Studio, where he learned "the Method," a style of acting that requires actors to plumb their own lives for motivation. He studied with Elia Kazan and Martin Ritt, both of whom would later direct him on stage or film.

Film studios kept calling Newman, and he resisted many of the initial offers because he considered their contracts stifling. "And then somebody, after a couple of Budweisers, said, 'You know, they knock and they knock, and at some point they stop knocking,' and that stuck in my head," he later told New York magazine. "I thought, 'When will they stop?' And the last knock was 'The Silver Chalice. ' "

Wearing a toga -- a "cocktail dress," as the actor called it -- and spouting ludicrous dialogue, he received humiliating reviews. When a Los Angeles station aired the movie years later, Newman took out a large newspaper ad apologizing for the film.

Back on Broadway in 1955, he earned enthusiastic reviews in "The Desperate Hours," playing a ruthless criminal who holds a family captive. That same year, he replaced James Dean, who died in a road accident, as a washed-out prize fighter in a television version of Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Battler."

Seven years later, Newman sought out the same, but much-diminished role in the film "Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man" (1962).

"They screamed at me out there," he once said, referring to Hollywood advisers. "I was cheapening myself by playing a bit part, they said. I was a star and couldn't play a bit. . . . I wanted to do it again for myself. I wanted to sit down and look at the kinescope of the TV show, and then look at the movie and see what I've learned about acting over the years."

Meanwhile, Newman had built up a critical reputation of imbuing stock characters with an intelligent restraint that often was not associated with the more flagrant of the Method acting followers.

As examples, reviewers pointed to his work as boxer Rocky Graziano in "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956) and an Army officer accused of enemy collaboration in "The Rack" (1956). He brought a vulnerability to roles that emphasized his physique, notably in "The Long, Hot Summer," based on stories by William Faulkner, and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (both 1958), from the Tennessee Williams play.

Starring opposite Elizabeth Taylor in "Cat," Newman played hard-drinking Brick, who refuses his wife's sexual advances because he is mourning the death of his gay friend, Skipper. The homosexual theme is played down in the film version, but Newman was well-aware of the subtext and tried to enliven the set with jokes about Brick's repression.

In one scene, he secretly pushed his wife's nightgown to his face out of deep longing for her. During rehearsal, he once said, "I suddenly tore off my pajama top and started to climb into my wife's nightgown, crying, 'Skipper! Skipper!' There were 20 people on that set, and do you know, not one of them laughed.

"To them, this was the Method in action and they stood in respectful silence. So, having bombed out on that mission, I mumbled something about, well, no, I guessed I wouldn't do it that way, after all."

Tired of mediocre studio assignments, Mr. Newman wanted to confront studio chief Jack Warner with an ultimatum. Newman's agent, the powerful Lew R. Wasserman, persuaded Newman of a better idea. Wasserman went to Warner and offered him $500,000 to buy out Newman's contract, saying the actor would "never amount to much."

It worked. Newman was free and paid his debt to Warner within two years. He returned to the stage, in Tennessee Williams's "Sweet Bird of Youth," directed by Kazan, and won terrific reviews as an ambitious gigolo.

He acted in the 1962 film version of the play as well as "The Hustler," the first in a series of roles that explored what he called the "corruptibility level" of people. He said that theme spoke to him as a socially conscious actor.

As Fast Eddie Felson, he played a soulless and self-centered rebel who competes against the legendary Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). For the role, Newman took lessons from the pool superstar Willie Mosconi but apparently had not learned well enough.

On the set, Gleason hustled him in a real life pool game. "I beat him three straight games in pool for a buck each," Newman said. "And then we played for two hundred dollars, and he beat me easy."

"Hud" (1963), based on Larry McMurtry's novel about a man with a "barbed-wire soul," as well as "Harper" (1966) and "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) made Newman the prime interpreter of selfish rebels.

"I tried to give Hud all the superficial external traces, including the right swing of the body," Newman once said. "I took out as many wrinkles as possible. I indicated that he boozed very well, was great with the broads, had a lot of guts, was extraordinarily competent at his job, but had a single tragic flaw: He didn't give a goddamn what happened to anyone else."Newman added that some reviewers faulted him for having "a face that doesn't look lived in." But Newman said the character's smoothness was exactly what made Hud dangerous.

His insight into character motivation was one of his finest traits. To play the self-destructive detective in "Harper," he said he "simply got drunk" as he read the script.

By the late 1960s, he began to feel like he was duplicating himself as an actor. He tried producing films in a short-lived partnership with Barbra Streisand and Sidney Poitier, but directing proved more his forte.

For his debut, he chose "Rachel, Rachel" and won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for directing.

Reviewers praised his clean, lucid style and technical skill, and he directed Woodward again in movie or TV versions of several Pulitzer Prize-winning plays. She was a middle-aged widow raising two daughters in "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" (1972) and appeared in "The Shadow Box" (1980), a television drama about hospice patients.

From the start of his career, Newman limited his social time in Hollywood, telling an interviewer he did not want to fall into the trap of material success that came so easily in the film world. He made an effort to appear grungy, wearing jeans and running shoes as well as a beer-can opener as a necklace.

He shunned Hollywood for an 18th-century farmhouse in Westport, with an apple orchard and pool. Newman hated signing autographs or being asked to display his best-known physical feature, his blue eyes.

"I try not to be hurtful," he said. "I say something like, 'If I take off my glasses, my pants will fall down.' Or, if they're insistent, I say, 'Sure, Ill take off my dark glasses if you'll let me look at your gums.' Fair's fair."

Asked once about his looks, he said his children called him "Old Skinny Legs."

Newman's biographer, Eric Lax, wrote that the actor liked to confound the Hollywood elite by driving a Volkswagen in which he had installed a Porsche engine.

His cars became a joke with friends such as Robert Redford, who once gave Newman a Porsche as a present. The car, however, was a wreck -- dented from an accident and missing its engine. Redford paid a dump truck driver to deposit the car in Newman's driveway with a note attached: "Happy birthday."

Newman had the car compressed, then placed in a wooden box at the Redford estate with a nasty letter. He conceded that Redford won the gag by never acknowledging the box.Newman had discovered auto racing while acting in the race-track film "Winning" (1969). "I cannot be competitive about acting, because there's no way to compete as an actor. What are you competing against?" he once said. "In auto racing, you either win or lose. You go across the finish line and come in first or second or ninth -- or not at all."

In 1976, he won his first national amateur championship, and the next year began racing with professionals. In 1979, he and two co-drivers finished second in the Le Mans 24-hour road race. He continued participating in pro races in the 1980s and 1990s, reaching speeds of 220 mph.

Newman also made forays into politics, often providing sex appeal to liberal campaigns. He volunteered extensively in 1968 for Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy (D-Minn.) and protested the Vietnam War at the U.S. Embassy in London.

Newman occasionally was ridiculed as out of his element. He was roundly criticized in 1978 as unqualified when President Jimmy Carter asked him to attend a U.N. General Assembly session on disarmament.

By the early 1980s, Newman made a decision to refocus his acting career after years of bloated disaster films and other undistinguished projects. Among the best films were the police story "Fort Apache, the Bronx" (1981) and the courtroom drama "The Verdict" (1982), in both of which he played deeply flawed heavy drinkers.

He was a stuffy old WASP in "Mr. & Mrs. Bridge" (1990); an aged ne'er-do-well in "Nobody's Fool" (1994); and a gangster chieftain in "Road to Perdition" (2002), a film that brought him his final Oscar nomination.

Articles have suggested that Newman's film choices were influenced by his troubled relationship with his father as well as Newman's estrangement from his son, Scott, a budding actor who died in 1978 of an overdose of alcohol and Valium.

In honor of Scott, a son from his first marriage, Newman organized in 1988 a camp in Connecticut for children with cancer and life-threatening illnesses. His most famous philanthropic venture began in the early 1980s when Newman and author A.E. Hotchner began a food business, Newman's Own, with products including salad dressing, spaghetti sauce, popcorn and cookies.

With profits from Newman's Own, he gave more than $250 million to charities and social welfare organizations. He joked that his salad dressings and pasta sauces earned more than his films.

Newman continued to act in recent years, notably as the stage manager in a 2002 Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," but he was certain acting was not his whole life.

He said that over the toilet bowl in his office bathroom he hung a letter from a fan -- of his tomato sauce. The letter ends: "My girlfriend mentioned that you were a movie star and I would be interested to know what you have made. If you act as well as you cook, your movies should be worth watching."

Castrating Congress, one unlawful billion at a time.

2008-09-22T19:49:00.002-04:00

I'm going to continue my recent practice of keeping it short.

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." So the White House wants its Secretary to have total power over the funds, however much that ends up being. In other words, the White House wants to take the power of the purse away from Congress in this matter and center it in the executive branch.

Lockstep towards tyranny.

Somebody do me a favor...

2008-09-15T22:51:00.001-04:00

Check John McCain's wrist and see if he's still wearing SPC Matthew Stanley's KIA bracelet. I'm just curious.

Batshit crazy!!

2008-09-05T16:08:00.003-04:00

Yeah, that about sums it up.

In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, Palin says, "God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that."

And... Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war because, "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

Ever heard Megadeth's "Holy Wars"? No? Give it a spin.

Bandit this here's the Snowman, you got your ears on?

2008-09-03T10:43:00.001-04:00

Jerry Reed, 71, a Grammy Award-winning country guitarist, singer and songwriter who played a mischievous, good old boy sidekick to Burt Reynolds in "Smokey and the Bandit" and other movies, died Sept. 1 at his home in the Nashville suburb of Brentwood. He had emphysema.

Mr. Reed's trademark Georgia baritone drawl and relaxed manner in film and television roles brought his ingratiating presence to a wide audience, notably as trucker Cledus "Snowman" Snow in "Smokey and the Bandit" (1977) and its two sequels.

But it was in country music where Mr. Reed thrived as a major, innovative artist from the late 1960s to early '80s. Besides " East Bound and Down," the theme song for "Smokey and the Bandit," his hit songs included the propulsive " Guitar Man," the Cajun-inspired funky novelty tune " Amos Moses" and the tender " A Thing Called Love." Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Porter Wagoner were among those to cover his best-known pieces.

Mr. Reed was a dynamic virtuoso who had distinguished himself as a session guitarist supporting Presley, Waylon Jennings and others before emerging as a major solo talent. He was most remembered for using an intricate guitar-picking style known as the "claw" because it used the entire right hand where earlier guitar giants such as Chet Atkins and Merle Travis favored a two or three-fingered approach.

Besides being the title of a song he wrote, the claw was a development that music historian Rich Kienzle called essential to the "wild, untamed and dauntingly complex" country music that followed Atkins and Travis.

Jerry Reed Hubbard, the son of cotton mill workers, was born in Atlanta on March 20, 1937. After his parents divorced, he spent his early childhood in orphanages and foster homes.

He showed his early flair for music by using a hairbrush as a rhythm guitar to accompany the "Grand Ole Opry" radio program. His mother, who had remarried, bought her son a cheap guitar and he showed immediate skill, albeit with unorthodox fingering methods.

Mr. Reed quit high school to perform in local honky-tonks and festivals and impressed an Atlanta radio show host, who took over the young man's management. He won engagements opening for singers Ernest Tubb and Faron Young.

He also wrote novelty tunes such as "If the Good Lord's Willing" that made little impact when he recorded them in the late 1950s.

However, rocker Gene Vincent covered Mr. Reed's song "Crazy Legs" in 1958, and Brenda Lee's version of Mr. Reed's "That's All You Gotta Do" appeared on the flip side of her 1960 hit "I'm Sorry." Wagoner also had a No.1 country hit with Mr. Reed's "Misery Loves Company" in 1962.

After brief Army service, in which he played in a country band, Mr. Reed settled in Nashville and was a session and tour guitarist for Wagoner and Bobby Bare, among others. His own career as a solo artist had withered until Atkins, who headed the Nashville unit at RCA Records, urged Mr. Reed to leave his record label, Columbia, for RCA.

Atkins's idea was not to refashion Mr. Reed to fit public taste but to let him pursue his own sound and identity. The plan worked, with Mr. Reed successfully reaching the charts with "Guitar Man" (1967).

The next year, Presley recorded "Guitar Man" and Mr. Reed's "U.S. Male" with the songwriter doing the backup guitar work.

Over the next several years, Mr. Reed experienced what was arguably his most professionally successful, with Grammy Awards for best instrumental performance both as a solo artist ("When You're Hot, You're Hot," 1971) and with Atkins ("Me & Jerry," 1970). His other hits included "Amos Moses" (1970) and " Lord, Mr. Ford" (1973), a comic look at the plight of car owners during the era's gasoline crisis.

Tall, blond and charismatic, Mr. Reed became a comic fixture on country television programs including the "Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour" and tried to parlay that fame into an acting career. His admittedly modest abilities limited him mostly to broad comedy, and his final role was as a sadistic football coach in "The Waterboy" (1998) with Adam Sandler.

Among Mr. Reed's last hit records, in 1983, was Tim DuBois's comic novelty " She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)." Although he faded from country music's front tier, he won another Grammy for best country instrumental performance for "Sneakin' Around" (1991) with Atkins.

In the late 1990s, he formed the Old Dogs with Jennings, Bare and Mel Tillis, and the group specialized in singing comic laments about aging. "I'm not one of those flat-belly singers anymore," Mr. Reed told the Associated Press at the time. "The record industry is one of those industries that will discourage you and turn you loose. They sell records to those screaming little girls."

Survivors include his wife of 49 years, Priscilla Mitchell Hubbard of Brentwood; two daughters, Charlotte "Lottie" Stewart of Franklin, Tenn., and Seidina Hinesley of Smyrna, Tenn.; and two grandchildren.

RIP Issac Hayes...

2008-08-10T21:49:00.001-04:00

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Isaac Hayes, the baldheaded, baritone-voiced soul crooner who laid the groundwork for disco and whose "Theme From Shaft" won both Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon after he collapsed near a treadmill, authorities said. He was 65.

Hayes was pronounced dead at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis an hour after he was found by a family member, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. The cause of death was not immediately known.

With his muscular build, shiny head and sunglasses, Hayes cut a striking figure at a time when most of his contemporaries were sporting Afros. His music, which came to be known as urban-contemporary, paved the way for disco as well as romantic crooners like Barry White.

And in his spoken-word introductions and interludes, Hayes was essentially rapping before there was rap. His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show "South Park."

"Isaac Hayes embodies everything that's soul music," Collin Stanback, an A&R executive at Stax, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "When you think of soul music you think of Isaac Hayes _ the expression ... the sound and the creativity that goes along with it."

Hayes was about to begin work on a new album for Stax, the soul record label he helped build to legendary status. And he had recently finished work on a movie called "Soul Men" in which he played himself, starring Samuel Jackson and Bernie Mac, who died on Saturday.
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Steve Shular, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said authorities received a 911 call after Hayes' wife and young son and his wife's cousin returned home from the grocery store and found him collapsed in a downstairs bedroom. A sheriff's deputy administered CPR until paramedics arrived.

"The treadmill was running but he was unresponsive lying on the floor," Shular said.

The album "Hot Buttered Soul" made Hayes a star in 1969. His shaven head, gold chains and sunglasses gave him a compelling visual image.

"Hot Buttered Soul" was groundbreaking in several ways: He sang in a "cool" style unlike the usual histrionics of big-time soul singers. He prefaced the song with "raps," and the numbers ran longer than three minutes with lush arrangements.

"Jocks would play it at night," Hayes recalled in a 1999 Associated Press interview. "They could go to the bathroom, they could get a sandwich, or whatever."

Next came "Theme From Shaft," a No. 1 hit in 1971 from the film "Shaft" starring Richard Roundtree.

"That was like the shot heard round the world," Hayes said in the 1999 interview.

At the Oscar ceremony in 1972, Hayes performed the song wearing an eye-popping amount of gold and received a standing ovation. TV Guide later chose it as No. 18 in its list of television's 25 most memorable moments. He won an Academy Award for the song and was nominated for another one for the score. The song and score also won him two Grammys.

"The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence," he said. "And they'll tell you if you ask."

Hayes was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

"I knew nothing about the business, or trends and things like that," he said. "I think it was a matter of timing. I didn't know what was unfolding."

A self-taught musician, he was hired in 1964 by Stax Records of Memphis as a backup pianist, working as a session musician for Otis Redding and others. He also played saxophone.

He began writing songs, establishing a songwriting partnership with David Porter, and in the 1960s they wrote such hits for Sam and Dave as "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man."

All this led to his recording contract.

In 1972, he won another Grammy for his album "Black Moses" and earned a nickname he reluctantly embraced. Hayes composed film scores for "Tough Guys" and "Truck Turner" besides "Shaft." He also did the song "Two Cool Guys" on the "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" movie soundtrack in 1996.Additionally, he was the voice of Nickelodeon's "Nick at Nite" and had radio shows in New York City (1996 to 2002) and then in Memphis.

He was in several movies, including "It Could Happen to You" with Nicolas Cage, "Ninth Street" with Martin Sheen, "Reindeer Games" starring Ben Affleck and the blaxploitation parody "I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka."

In the 1999 interview, Hayes described the South Park cook as "a person that speaks his mind; he's sensitive enough to care for children; he's wise enough to not be put into the 'wack' category like everybody else in town _ and he l-o-o-o-o-ves the ladies."

But Hayes angrily quit the show in 2006 after an episode mocked his Scientology religion.

"There is a place in this world for satire," he said. "but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs of others begins."

Co-creator creators Matt Stone responded that Hayes "has no problem _ and he's cashed plenty of checks _ with our show making fun of Christians." A subsequent episode of the show seemingly killed off the Chef character.

Hayes was born in 1942 in a tin shack in Covington, Tenn., about 40 miles north of Memphis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died and his father took off when he was 1 1/2. The family moved to Memphis when he was 6.

Hayes wanted to be a doctor, but got redirected when he won a talent contest in ninth grade by singing Nat King Cole's "Looking Back."

He held down various low-paying jobs, including shining shoes on the legendary Beale Street in Memphis. He also played gigs in rural Southern juke joints where at times he had to hit the floor because someone began shooting.

Happy National Airborne Day!

2008-08-09T12:50:00.002-04:00

To all my brothers out there.

And not to be out done. Here's to the Colonel.

Show off.