Okay folks, we are at least unofficially in the throes of summer 2023 and judging from the weather this Memorial Day weekend, things will be good. Since this is, after all, a death blog, I would be remiss if I didn’t note the meaning of Memorial Day which is to honor all those brave men and women who literally gave their lives in service of our Country which I take to mean me. And you should take to mean you. People who bravely went to fight for this Country and regardless of how you feel about wars in general or a particular war specifically, people went and died when told to by their Country. To give their lives meaning we need to honor them on at least one day a year and Memorial day is it. So if you missed your chance this year, please don’t ever miss it again. Okay, enough proselytizing. Those who appear in this month’s rag did not give their lives for us but did do notable things for which I write about them but to none provide a continual remembrance. Except perhaps for EVH. Now, onto our dearly departed.
Okay, as I have to go through the trouble of putting this together, I get to choose the hierarchy of loss. While you all thought Gordon Lightfoot would be first but then heard about Tina, which gave you pause for who would get top billing, you would be wrong on both counts. It is all about priorities in life. For me, that starts with the hot dog. New York is a literal culinary garden of Eden. You can get everything here. Head to Keene’s for the best steaks and Le Bernardin for seafood and Grammercy Tavern for just the best all-around food, it’s all here and I could go on. But New York not only has the best high-brow food, it has the best low-brow food from its dirty water dogs to Halal Guys and regardless of what Dave Portnoy says, its great pizza (with apologies to Palermo’s of Bordentown who has the best pizza in its tomato pie). It is in my mind, the hot dog that remains supreme on the low-brow side of New York food (and I mean that only in the best of ways), and I have learned that, since Orange Julius closed, nothing pairs better with that dog than a papaya drink. This month we lost Nicholas Gray who started and, for the last 50 years, operated Grays Papaya, an establishment whose sign over the entrance says it all: “When You’re Hungry, or Broke or Just in a Hurry!” To be sure, Mr. Gray did not invent the pairing of the hot dog and papaya. That honor goes to Constantine Poulos who “discovered” the papaya drink on a vacation and thought he could build an empire on it which he did. He started Papaya King. That spawned a spate of such places including, according to the New York Times, “14th Street Papaya, Chelsea Papaya, Empire Papaya, Papaya International, Papaya World, Papaya World II, Papaya Heaven and Papaya Paradise.” That’s a lot of papaya. Mr. Gray, who was in 1973 working on Wall Street and recently divorced, wandered into the Papaya King and decided he liked the vibe and threw his lot in with the hot dog, negotiating a franchise agreement to open his own Papaya King which, after two years, morphed into Gray’s Papaya which still operates at Broadway and 72nd. One wonders if there was some litigation over the wiener and juice pairing. When he opened Gray’s, you could get a hot dog and tropical drink for $1.95. He held that price for years but ultimately yielded to inflation. Today, the recession special (two dogs and a drink) is $6.95. To quote from a recent Yelp review: “If you're feeling Katz Deli as a staple, this is side by side in must go to places in NYC. Don't worry about the line, you'll probably eat your dog and get back on line for another one. It’s worth it!” Grays Papaya had several locations but high rents have been the things bringing all of the papaya palaces to near extinction. That said, Mrs. Grey, who now operates the place, says that they have a long time to go on the lease and there are no plans to do anything but keep dishing out the dogs. For that, we are all as I would have said as a kid, lucky dogs.
Rare that a marquee person leaves us on the first day of the month but that is what happened in May when Gordon Lightfoot died at 84. In my mind he was one of the more underrated singer-songwriters of my day. There are others but with his baritone voice and finely crafted tunes I would think him to have been more of a force in music. His below-the-radar status may have been fostered by his choice to remain living in Canada, not a Country, like say the U.S., that tends to constantly aggrandize its entertainers. With songs like “Sundown,” “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Early Morning Rain,” “Carefree Highway,” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” among others, his catalog of tunes is strong. Billy Joel, although he never met him, has said he looked up to him as a songwriter. While it may not be cool to be a Billy Joel fan, I am an unabashed admirer, so I see that as high praise. Bob Dylan covered “Early Morning Rain,” noting once that “I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot Song I don’t like.” Lightfoot’s songs were often autobiographical, introspective, and dark. “If You Could Read My Mind was written after a divorce (there were two). “Sundown” was based upon his tumultuous relationship with Catherine Smith who later in her life was convicted of administering a lethal dose of heroin to John Belushi. Thus, even though he staying mostly in Canada, his life had the requisite amount of sex and drugs. As domestic abuse is somewhat of a theme in this month’s edition, I should also note that his and Smith’s relationship involved allegations of violence on the part of both of them. In 1975 Newsweek published an article entitled “The Cruelest Month” about the last voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald which sunk in Lake Superior late in the shipping season in high seas. Lightfoot read the account and wrote a song based on the article. He labored over certain inaccuracies in the tune utilizing poetic license but his producer told him to just tell the story. As facts about the tragedy were uncovered, he would alter the lyrics at live shows. For instance, at one point in the song, he attributes crew error, (“at 7:00 pm the main hatchway gave in”) which he later learned was not true so he sang other lyrics. When the parishioners at the maritime church he referred to as musty (“in a musty old hall”) he altered the word to rustic. He always considered the tune his best, although I am partial to “Sundown.” What we know is that Superior (and life) “never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early.”
Now to Tina, who left us at 83. Bill Graham once said that Otis Redding was one of the sexiest performers he had ever seen. He must have said that before he ever saw Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock). She was all hair (often wigs), legs (President George W. Bush described her legs as “the most famous in show business”), sex, moves, you name it. Mick Jagger owes his moves to her as do most good front people. She had a voice that was as good as any. Watch this rendition of Help. Years ago on his show, Dick Cavett asked Janis Joplin who she listened to and she answered without hesitating Tina Turner. She noted that she was in the Ike and Tina Turner Review and that “Ike is her husband and band leader but Tina is the show.” Man was she right. Tina hooked up with Ike, who I credit with being on the first rock n’ roll record, “Rocket 88” when she was 17. Soon thereafter they were married and in Spectoresqe manner, he physically and mentally abused her although given that he looked like he weighed 80 pounds and would be no match for her, the abuse was pervasive and real. It was Ike who named her Tina Turner and changed the name of his band to the Ike and Tina Turner Review. With songs like the Creedence remake of “Proud Mary,” the ITTR became huge. In a strange confluence, Phil Spector produced the 1966 “River Deep Mountain High” track (with the proviso that Ike have nothing to do with the production), which is itself a musical tour de force. But the abuse continued and Tina finally bowed out in 1976. Apparently, in the divorce, all that Tina wanted was the name Tina Turner which she believed had value. Ike apparently wanted it back. She trademarked it in 1978. Their histories however, will always be linked. As only the New York Post can do, when Ike died in 2007, it ran the headline, “Ike Turner Beats Tina To Death.” If you don’t believe me, see it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/2y3gpk/the_ny_post_headline_after_rock_and_roll_legend/. After the divorce, she was broke, in debt, and without a recording deal. Her response was the monster album “Private Dancer,” whose title tune was written by Mark Knopfler. The album yielded perhaps her signature tune, “What’s Love got to Do With It.” After that record, her fame knew no bounds. She amassed 8 Grammy Awards and sold over 180 million albums (remember them?), wrote a book and had movies made about her. In a complete turnaround, Ms. Turner married Erwin Bach, a German record company executive in 1993 and relocated to Switzerland. She had a stroke soon after the marriage and ultimately needed a kidney which Mr. Erwin donated. Doubt Ike would have done the same. To me, Tina Turner’s biggest legacy was that of performer. She was the full package. Voice, moves, presence and sex appeal which drives performances. I will get killed by all the Swifties, but there is no comparison between how Taylor sells sex and how Tina simply oozed it. No one has come near her although everyone has tried. She was simply the best.
“Black roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings; Silver horses ran down moonbeams in your dark eyes; Dawn light smiles on you leaving, my contentment.” Can someone tell me what that means? To me it means that if you had written that you’d be rich and that I’m wasting my time putting this together. Peter Brown, the lyricist of many Cream songs (like “White Room”, “Sunshine of Your Love,” “I Feel Free”) and most of Jack Bruce’s solo songs died at 82. He was a beat poet who ginger Baker recruited to write songs with him for Cream but Baker could get along with no one and Brown found that he and Bruce made good songwriting partners and set about to compose some of Creams biggest hits. Brown eventually put some albums out but did not get real traction. He’s “been waiting so long; To be where [he’s] going; In the sunshine of your love.”
From music to sports, Jim Brown, perhaps the best football player ever to lace up the cleats, died at 87. As a fullback for the Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965 he ran over, around and through defenders. He said it was his teammates’ job to get him to the secondary and then he would take care of it from there. Chuck Howley, who was a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys, told Life magazine that the first time he defended Brown “I had one of my best days. I made almost as much yardage as he did — riding on his back.” Brown grew up in Georgia until he was eight and he then moved with his mom to Long Island where he attended Manhasset High School before going to Syracuse where he played both football and Lacrosse. He was drafted by the Browns and played there until his surprise retirement. While a player, Brown started acting. He was filming the “Dirty Dozen” in Europe and the filming was delayed a bit making him late for training camp. He called the Browns Owner, Art Modell, to tell him and Modell informed Brown that he would be fined for every day he missed camp. The ploy backfired and Brown called a press conference and retired from football, probably saving his brain a lot of wear and tear. Brown went on to make many more movies but given his thespian skills, it is fair to say that Academy Awards were not in the offing. Not because he was a bad actor but because the roles in which he was cast were not overly challenging. Brown’s biggest accomplishment off the field involved his civil rights work. At a time when many Black athletes believed that just playing the game was enough (could you blame them?), Brown became an early spokesperson for Civil Rights. He not only talked it up but he put his money where his mouth was. Believing, as the New York Times wrote, that “economic self-sufficiency held more promise than mass protests,” he started the Black Economic Union to provide seed money and loans to Black businesses. He later started Amer-I-Can to teach life skills to ang members and the incarcerated. When Muhammad Ali was having his troubles for protesting the draft, Brown brought together prominent athletes such as Bill Russel, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) as well as others to show support. His work in the civil rights arena matches his awe-inspiring feats on the gridiron. But Brown was a complicated person with a little Ike Turner in him and was often involved in domestic violence situations. Once the police responded to his house to find his girlfriend bloodied and badly hurt on his patio. He claimed she fell from the balcony although the police believed she was pushed. The woman refused to testify. In another incident his wife called the police to report that he had smashed her car windows with a shovel after an argument. He did four months in prison for that but the marriage survived. Brown was quoted in Sports Illustrated about is issues in this area stating, “I can definitely get angry, and I have taken that anger out inappropriately in the past, but I have done so with both men and women.” He was correct there because he once beat and choked a golfing buddy after an argument over where to spot the ball. That said, I have always lived by the rule that hitting a woman is hitting a woman and the fact that someone hits a man on occasion does not excuse the conduct. Like with Ike, this abuse took place at a time when batting around your spouse or lover was societally acceptable so long as no fuss was made. Thus, while tarnished, we cannot let that define the man, only inform us about him. He was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame, and the Lacrosse Hall of Fame. No word on what Manhasset High School did with him. A six member panel of the Associated Press voted him the greatest football player of the 20th Century. Even tarnished as it is, not a bad legacy. That is, unless you were laying on the patio after having “fallen” from the balcony.
When I was a kid, wrestling was on the Spanish UHF channel 47. It was the “la canal las grandios and spectaculos.” It was low-budget but fun, with people breaking chairs over each other’s heads and filmed in VFW halls. Nothing like the WWE spectaculars from giant arenas we have today. One of the throwback wrestlers who bridged those two worlds, Superstar Billy Graham (born Ethridge Wayne Coleman), is down for the count at 79. Taking his name from the preacher Billy Graham and engrafting Superstar from the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, Graham concocted a persona that was bottle-blond, outrageous, part preacher and part sheer power. In fact, before he played for the Montreal Allouettes in the Canadian Football League, he tried his hand at preaching but found it didn’t pay well. Don’t tell that to Joel Osteen. After stints as a debt collector and bouncer he found wrestling. As he had taken up weightlifting as a kid and took copious amounts of steroids to bulk up, he was perfect for the profession. He worked his way up and eventually, in 1977, wrested the title from Bruno Sammartino. The next year, the head of the then WWF (now WWE), Vincent McMahon (the father, not the womanizing son we know today), dictated that Superstar would cede the belt to Bob Backlund. Sorry to you folks who think this stuff is real. Anyway, Superstar’s real legacy was not in the belts he attained but the bigger-than-life persona that he was, inspiring the likes of wrestlers to follow such as Hulk Hogan. Jesse “The Body” Ventura, who went from one form of entertainment – wrestling – to another – politics – as the Governor of Minnesota, wrote on Twitter after Superstar’s death, that “There wouldn’t be a Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura without the in-ring success and trailblazing showmanship of Superstar Billy Graham.” Over the years, the steroids he took wreaked havoc with his body. He retired from wrestling after his first hip replacement (there would be six) and he was left sterile with weakened bones and organ failure. He testified at the trial of an osteopath and surgeon who supplied steroids to wrestlers. In the end, it will be his power and most importantly, his persona that left millions smiling that will be remembered.
We lost Vida Blue this month at 73. Blue was the pitching force behind the Oakland Athletics who won three consecutive World Series in 1972, 73 and 74. Both Time magazine and Sports Illustrated put him on their covers in his rookie year. In his first full season he won both the Cy Young award and the MVP. His salary that year was $15,000. Take that Max Scherzer, who purportedly makes $43,333,333. He constantly battled with the owner of the A’s, Charley Finley, who once offered Blue $2,000 to legally change his name to Vida True Blue, prompting Blue to quip “ if Mr. Findley thinks it’s such great name, why doesn’t he change his to True O’Findlay. After his first season he felt he should make an additional $100,000 and fought with Findlay stating that he would quit baseball and become a vice president for public relations at a steel mill. The two agreed on a salary of $63,000. It was Blue’s fastball that made batters blue. Pete Rose stated that Blue threw as hard as anyone. His ball would seemingly jump over the bat. He threw a curveball and decent change-up but his fastball was money. A six time All-Star he was the first pitcher (there have since ben four more) to start for both the American and National leagues. During his career he pitched for The Oakland A’s, the San Francisco Giants (two stints) and the Kansas City Royals. He would probably be in the Hall of Fame but for a substance abuse problem he battled. He once did an 81-day jail stint but recovered and became a model person. The Hall ought to get with it and recognize this guy.
Being an umpire is a thankless job. Being an umpire who blows a call that ultimately cost the St Louis Cardinals the 1985 World Championship is a life of sheer misery. That is what happened to Don Denkinger, who died at 86. I mean, the guy’s entire career, where, by all accounts, he was a great umpire, has been defined by that call. Here was the situation: The St Louis Cardinals were ahead of the Kansas City Royals three games to two in the World Series and ahead in game six in the bottom of the ninth, one-nothing. George Ortega of the Rangers led off the inning with a grounder to Cardinals first baseman Jack Clark who fielded it and flipped it to the pitcher, Todd Worrell for an obvious out. Except Denkinger called him safe. This was before replay. Denkinger would later recount to Sports Illustrated: “I was in good position, but Worrell is tall, the throw was high, and I couldn’t watch his glove and his feet at the same time. It was a soft toss, and there was so much crowd noise, I couldn’t hear the ball hit the glove.” Wouldn’t you know it, Kansas City went on to win the game, which would have clinched it for St. Louis, and the next to win the Championship. Denkinger received the obligatory death threats, and the FBI was brought into investigate but nothing ever came of it. He owned a restaurant and in it hung a painting of what came to be known as “the call.” He ultimately reconciled with St. Louis manager Whitey Herzog speaking at a dinner for the Whitey Herzog Youth Foundation. Denkinger had a good attitude about it saying once that “life goes on.” Good for him. He shouldn’t let one call define him. That said, if he made that call today in a little league game, he would probably wind up in the hospital the way parents react at sporting events. Go blue.
I am a passing fan of sports. I cannot regale you with statistics and team rosters. When my teams lose, I don’t find myself in the doldrums for days so I believe my relationship with sports is healthy if not intimate. Because of that, and perhaps because the state of radio is not great, I am a fan of the FAN, WFAN radio. I listen to Boomer and Gio religiously and like Richard Neer (who was a great WNEW rock DJ in the day) and Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts. Not a big fan of Carton or the mid-morning show. I was, however, a fan of Rick Wolff’s Sunday morning show on kids in sports. Mr. Wolff died at 71. The show dealt with the whole panorama of amateur sports and how kids can get ruined by over-indulgent parents and sports organizations that try to pigeon-hole kids in a particular sport at too young an age. Were I a parent of competitive, sports-minded kids, I would say his show was required listening. Wolf was a Harvard grad who played on their baseball team, played minor league ball and was a sport psychologist for the then Cleveland Indians. As an aside, while I agree that the Indians name had to go because their team mascot, Chief Wahoo, was the embodiment of every native American stereotype and was especially odious, the “Guardians” sounds like some sort of birth control method. In any event, Wolff was successful in helping to lift the team from the doldrums and making them competitive. However, It was his Sunday morning show for a twenty-five year period that was a mainstay. It was unique and unfortunately, I do not think there is anyone to replace him and that is a shame for parents of sports kids who will not have a place to help them navigate the pitfalls (and there are many) their kids will face. A true loss.
It’s ten o’clock, do you know where your children are? The answer today is probably no but there was a time when each night that would be the tag line before what was then the WNEW news, when John Kluge and not Rupert Murdoch owned the joint, on channel five. It is now Fox News but back when Bill Jorgenson anchored it, it was WNEW. After Jorgenson left, the job went to John Roland who died at 81. My mom was a big fan so we watched it every night. If I did not put him in this blog she would probably rise from the dead and give me a smack, so like I bend for EVH, I’ll bend for my mom although it is somewhat less of a bend since I liked the guy myself. And frankly, my mom has more sway with me than Calcagni but perhaps not that much. He (Roland, not Calcagni) once got into it with a homeless person on the air challenging her for actions she had omitted. He was suspended when people complained. Today he would have been fired. I think it made for good television. He also disarmed and shot one of three guys trying to rob a restaurant across the street from the TV studio. Another of the robbers cracked him in the head with the butt of a gun requiring 36 stitches. He was married four times but his work colleagues, unlike the women he married, said he was easy to get along with. We’ll always know where he is at 10:00.
Jaclyn Zeman wasn’t a real nurse, but she played one on television – for some 50 years. She died at 70, pretty young for someone in the medical field. As Barbara Jean Spenser, or Bobbie, she appeared in over 900 episodes of General Hospital. According to the show, prior to being a nurse shew had been a prostitute and you could see where this was going to lead. She played the younger sister of Luke Spenser who was played by Anthony Geary, a popular daytime actor. A lot of my friends became hooked on the soaps during their college years when they didn’t want to go to class and study and knew that it was too early even for them to drink so they anesthetized themselves with really bad television, not that there is any really good television. I never did watch this dreck so Ms. Zeman was clearly on the bubble. She was a long-running non-nurse on a great soap opera but that wasn’t moving the needle for me. I then learned that one of her marriages was to Murray the K and that got her entrance. I mean he is a legend and she slept with him and probably did a lot more. Beats anything that could happen in a fictional hospital to a prostitute turned nurse. Prior to working on General Hospital she was on One Life to Live and that seems to be the catchphrase of the day.
Okay, that’s it for May. Enjoy the summer and don’t drink too much. Okay, forget that, but don’t drive when you do it. Pay for the dammed Uber because you don’t want someone writing about your life trying to make it much more interesting that it actually was.
Eddie Van Halen. He has become a recurring theme.
Very entertaining and informative, as always, but I'm missing something: What or who is EVH?