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Don Tyson, the Arkansas businessman who turned his family's chicken farm into a fortune 500 company, Tyson Foods, has died of cancer. He helped develop Chicken McNuggets for McDonald's and KFC’s Rotisserie Gold. As Little Rock financial analyst Mark A. Plummer told The New York Times in 1994, “It was pretty much Don’s vision that fueled the company. He saw that if you added more convenience by further processing the chicken, consumers would pay for it.”
Good Lord, I would encourage all the musicians of my youth to be careful today. Mick Karn, bassist for Japan and Dalis Car, has died at the age of 52. The cause was cancer.
Oh, man, Gerry Rafferty died. If you grew up in the late Seventies, "Baker Street" was an omnipresent force in your world. It took me a long time to get to the point where I could listen to the song without the layers of half-remembered brown and green living rooms affecting my perception, but once I finally did it was pretty obvious why it became the huge hit that it was. "Stuck In The Middle With You," which a whole new generation learned from the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack, is fun enough, and even though there's something very dated about it, "Right Down The Line" is another great one. For me, though, it's the Mark Knopfler-penned "The Way It Always Starts," from the soundtrack to Local Hero that will always have a special place in my heart. Rafferty was 63.
Director Blake Edwards has died. Edwards is best known for the Pink Panther series, but he also directed Breakfast at Tiffany's, Micki & Maude and Victor Victoria, the last two of which I remember absolutely cackling at as a kid. Edwards was 88. @ 1:20 pm
Legendary saxophonist and flutist James Moody has died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Moody, one of the most genial men in jazz, was responsible for the classic "Moody's Mood for Love," which he discusses above. You can hear the King Pleasure version here. Moody was 85.
Irvin Kershner, director of the good Star Wars movie, has died at the age of 87. @ 11:20 am
Among the most humorless people I knew were those who despaired at my love for the Naked Gun trilogy. Blinded by the shuffle of dick and fart jokes—these are the objects of scorn for critics of the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker comedies—they couldn't see the inventive plot excursions and genius hilarity. Presumably they also didn't see the genius of the straight man amid the chaos: Sergeant Frank Drebin, Detective Lieutenant Police Squad. Read More
Dino De Laurentiis has died at the age of 91. From Barbarella to Conan the Barbarian to Dune to Blue Velvet to Bound, De Laurentiis had his hand in films that were radical, challenging, dreadful and sometimes all three of those.
George Lee "Sparky" Anderson, one of Major League Baseball's all-time greats, has died. Anderson managed both the Detroit Tigers and Cincinnati Reds to World Series wins, and should also be remembered for his refusal to manage scabs in the wake of the 1994-1995 strike. Anderson was 76. @ 2:20 pm
Jerry Bock, who wrote the music for Fiddler on the Roof, has died. If you're Jewish you saw the movie at least seven times growing up and still have days where the melody to "If I Were a Rich Man" or "Tradition" or "Matchmaker" or "Sunrise, Sunset" is inexplicably lodged in your head. Bock was 81. @ 4:50 pm
"S. Neil Fujita, a graphic designer who used avant-garde painting and photography to create some of the most striking album covers of the 1950s, and who designed the visually arresting book jackets for 'In Cold Blood' and 'The Godfather,' died on Saturday in Greenport, on the North Fork of Long Island. He was 89."
As a consumer of culture of whatever age, I guarantee you that you are familiar with some of this amazing work.
Paul the psychic octopus, oracle of sport, scourge of despots, and supermarket pitch-cephalopod, is in eight-legged heaven. I mean, he's dead. No cause of death has been provided, which seems kind of—wait for it—fishy to me. (Sorry.) Paul the psychic octopus was 2. @ 9:20 am
It's a sad day for sleazy Italians and lovers of beaver shots everywhere: Penthouse founder Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione has passed away at the age of 79. Guccione, who forever changed the way we look at nude women—I mean, he really got up in there—is the first in the triumvirate our nation's naked lady picture pushers to die. Despite a glamorous, incredibly tacky life that featured forays into film, science ("He once hired 82 scientists to develop a small nuclear reactor as a low-cost energy source, but it came to nothing and cost $17 million.") and gambling, Guccione lived long enough to see his fortune melt away, and finally suffered the ultimate indignity that any person can, dying in Plano, Texas. It is a tragic American tale.
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