Tag: In Memory

The Saturday Night Music Express – Special Memorial Edition – Presents: Stone Temple Pilots

Los Angeles (CNN) — Aaron Swartz, an Internet savant who at a young age shaped the online era by co-developing RSS and Reddit and later became a digital activist, has committed suicide, a relative told CNN Saturday.
He was 26 years old.

A prodigy, Swartz was behind some of the Internet’s iconic moments, soaring to heights that many developers only dream of. At the same time, he was plagued by legal problems arising from his aggressive activism, and he was also known to suffer depression, a personal matter that he publicly revealed on his blog.

Related:

Others: AlterNet, Mashable!, Guardian, The Daily Caller, The Verge, VentureBeat, Towleroad News #gay, The Raw Story and Gothamist,  New York Times, Hullabaloo, Althouse, Guardian and Brad DeLong,  Crooked Timber, The Agonist, The Atlantic Online, Guardian, Balloon Juice, The Lede,Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Gawker, TechCrunch, Althouse and Lessig Blog, v2, The Reality-Based Community (Memeorandum)

The Thursday Morning Music Express Presents: Dave Brubeck

I will not lie to my readers, Jazz is really not my thing. I am a rock and roller. However, I always show mad respect to the great ones in music. Jazz is an American thing, and we invented it, and people overseas wanted to sound like us. This was back, when America was a great Nation and people around the world wanted to be like us.

Enjoy the music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faJE92phKzI

Dave Brubeck, the pianist and composer who helped make jazz popular again in the 1950s and ’60s with recordings like “Time Out,” the first jazz album to sell a million copies, and “Take Five,” the still instantly recognizable hit single that was that album’s centerpiece, died on Wednesday in Norwalk, Conn. He would have turned 92 on Thursday.

He died while on his way to a cardiology appointment, Russell Gloyd, his producer, conductor and manager for 36 years, said. Mr. Brubeck lived in Wilton, Conn.

In a long and successful career, Mr. Brubeck brought a distinctive mixture of experimentation and accessibility that won over listeners who had been trained to the sonic dimensions of the three-minute pop single.

Mr. Brubeck experimented with time signatures and polytonality and explored musical theater and the oratorio, baroque compositional devices and foreign modes. He did not always please the critics, who often described his music as schematic, bombastic and — a word he particularly disliked — stolid. But his very stubbornness and strangeness — the blockiness of his playing, the oppositional push-and-pull between his piano and Paul Desmond’s alto saxophone — make the Brubeck quartet’s best work still sound original.

Outside of the group’s most famous originals, which had the charm and durability of pop songs ( “Blue Rondo à la Turk,” “It’s a Raggy Waltz” and “Take Five”), some of its best work was in its overhauls of standards like “You Go to My Head,” “All the Things You Are” and “Pennies From Heaven.” — Source

Others Remembering — Left and Right: BBC, Gothamist, Los Angeles Times, The Maddow Blog, Gawker, Truthdig, Stinque, The Week, Blazing Cat Fur, Balloon Juice and Althouse, The Atlantic Online, Los Angeles Times, Outside the Beltway, Gimme Noise, The Democratic Daily, The Reaction, Power Line and The Volokh Conspiracy, FIRST DRAFT

In Loving Memory: Ada Arlene Quinn

I just recently lost a family member and I got permission from her daughter Sandy to post this tribute.

arlene
Ada Arlene Quinn – My second cousin or my grandfather’s, Brother’s Daughter

Arlene, as we called her,was my Grandfather’s Brother’s Daughter. This would be on my Mother’s side of the family.  She was born on August 30, 1946 and passed away on October 8, 2012. She was one of the strongest women than I know, outside of my own Mother. I will always remember the kindness that she and her parents, showed to my family, when we would go to Dalton, Georgia every year.

This music video, which happens to be a personal favorite of mine, is dedicated to her, and the legacy of love that she leaves with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Rest in peace, Arlene and save me a place at the throne; I will be with you in a little while. Angel

My continued prayers for the Quinn family, during this very difficult time.

Here’s the video:

Breaking News: Arlen Specter has died

Some sad news to report on a Sunday.

NBC News Politics:

220px-Arlen_Specter,_official_Senate_photo_portraitFormer U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Republican-turned-Democrat who played a key role in many Supreme Court nominations, has died. He was 82.

His son Shanin Specter says his father died Sunday morning at his home in Philadelphia, from complications of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He had battled cancer and other health problems.

Specter served 30 years in the Senate, a Pennsylvania record.

In April 2009, he startled fellow senators when he announced he was switching to the Democratic side because he did not think he could win the nomination for a sixth term in the increasingly conservative GOP. He wound up losing the 2010 Democratic primary to then-Rep. Joe Sestak, who narrowly lost Specter’s seat to conservative Pat Toomey

 

 

I will not write negatively about someone who has died. The man stood for what he believed in. In the wave of the Tea Party movement, Spector became a pariah. Something I know too well about. He tried switching sides, and was not wanted. Spector was from a different era, when politics and Conservatism were not as ugly as they have become in this new era of Sound Bites, and new media.

May he rest in peace, and my prayers to him family in this hour of mourning. Praying

Update: Kudos to the commenters over at DailyKos for showing some serious class on this subject. Applause

The Sunday Afternoon Music Express – Special Memorial Edition Presents: The McGuire Sisters

PHOENIX – Dorothy McGuire of the popular 1950s musical trio the McGuire Sisters has died at age 84.
Daughter-in-law Karen Williamson says McGuire died of natural causes at her son’s Phoenix-area home on Friday.
McGuire teamed up with her sisters Phyllis and Christine to earn six gold records for hits like “Sincerely” and “Sugartime.”
The sisters began singing together at their mother’s Ohio church and then performed at weddings and church revivals. They got their big break on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts show in 1952 where they continued to perform for seven years.
They stopped touring in the late 1960s but reunited in the 1980s and last performed together in the mid-2000s.
She’s survived by her two sisters, her husband of 53 years, Lowell Williamson, two sons and two step-children.— via Fox News

The Late Night Music Express presents: The Doobie Brothers

This is a special memorial edition.  The Doobie Brothers have suffered a loss.

…and there are so many more, I would post them all. But this blog entry would go on for pages.

Anyhow, here’s the official news: (H/T The Detroit Free Press)

March 13,2012—Sonoma CA—Longtime Doobie Brothers drummer Mike Hossack passed away peacefully yesterday March 12 at his home in Dubois, Wyoming after a long battle with cancer he was 65.  Doobie Brothers manager Bruce Cohn made the announcement. [PHOTOS]

“Mike was a one-of-a kind guy and a long-time member of the Doobie Brothers,” remembers Cohn. “He was a fighter and fought the big battle with cancer and he was a close personal friend of mine and I speak for Mike’s family and the entire band when I say he will be greatly missed.”

The Doobie Brothers Tom Johnston remembered Hossack, “Mike has always been a part of my musical life and the life of the Doobie Brothers; from our earliest singles, like China Grove and Blackwater to our most recent single Brighter Day.   He was an incredible musician, a studio quality drummer.  The last few years, he was brave and determined to keep on playing in the face of ill health, and I will always admire him for that.  He was a terrific dad and family man, and we will all miss him.”

The Doobie’s Pat Simmons, who was a close friend of Hossack’s, said, “When my kids were little, they used to call him Big Mike, because to them he was such a big guy.  But to me and those who knew him, he had an even a bigger heart.  We were friends for 43 years and we shared some wonderful adventures together, times I will never forget.  Thanks for all those wonderful memories Mike, and all the great music. We love you.”

Michael Hossack was born in Paterson, New Jersey on October 17, 1946 (a real baby boomer). At age twelve Mike started playing drums in the Little Falls Cadets, a Boy Scout Drum and Bugle Corp. He credits his drum instructors, Joe Whelan (Little Falls Cadets), Bob Peterson (Our Lady of Lourdes Cadets), and George Tuttle (Fair Lawn Cadets) for teaching him the disciplines of playing with other drummers.

Thanks for the music Mike. Rest in peace. 🙁 😥

Prayers for the members and past members of The Doobie Brothers and The Hossack Family.

Get the Music, I am sure the guys could use the help right now:

Click here to get ALL of the Doobie Brothers Catalog

Man Down: Mil-Blogger Neptunus Lex killed in plane crash

I just saw the news flash across twitter.

We have lost another one.

Mil-Blogger Neptunus Lex has died in a plane crash.

Read the story here at RedState.

A final farewell guest post is happening here at his blog.

A personal note, Lex’s blog was one of the first blogs that I started reading, when I finally realized that the left was just simply wrong. I used to comment there every now and again. I also started using the same theme as him, because I found it to be so impressive.

This is for you Lex:

This too:

Rest in peace Lex, we’ll handle it from here.

Update: Blackfive is remembering too: Here, here, and here.

Others: Outside the Beltway, Questions and Observations, The PJ Tatler

 

Andrew Breitbart RIP

I feel like a guitarist, who is standing on a stage and has sudden realized; he has forgotten the chords to the song he is supposed to be playing.

I mean what words can be written about the man that has not already been written already somewhere else?

I am referring, of course, the passing on Conservative Lion, Warrior, and Publisher Andrew Breitbart, who died last night around midnight at the age for 42.

He was only three years older than I am; this is why this hits me so very hard.  I wake up around my normal time and grabbed my iPod, to see what is going on the world and this comes up.  I let out a rather loud, “Yeah Right!” and figure it is another one of this man’s pranks.

It is not a prank.  (At least I like the think that it is not a prank…)

I did not always agree with his tactics, I did not like what he had to say about Ted Kennedy when he died, I blogged about that on my old blog.  I thought it was morally wrong and I told him so in a tweet once.  I was so incensed about it that I blocked him on twitter for a very long while.

However, the man could not be and would not be ignored; at least not by me.  He took risks; he always had the uncanny ability to dig up some of the best stuff on the left and literally would use it against them.  I admired him for that; because you realize, I used to vote Democratic Party and I knew and still do know about how they pit race against race, class against class — all of that — and Andrew knew it and played it for every damned bit it was worth.

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In this section here, I had some thoughts about Andrew’s death. After thinking about it; I have decided to remove them, out of respect for the family.

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The bottom line is this; the Conservative world has lost its “Merry Prankster.”  It has lost its warrior and nobody will ever fill those shoes, not even bloggers; because Andrew took the risks and was willing to stick his neck out to expose the left and its misdeeds.

Andrew will be missed by many, including me.

My Prayers go to the family and his wife and Children.

Others: Left, Right and Media: Guardian, Little Green Footballs, JustOneMinute, Washington Wire, The Raw Story, Michelle Malkin, The Jawa Report, Hugh Hewitt’s TownHall Blog, RedState, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, KNSD-TV, GOP 12, Hot Air, Hit & Run, News Desk, LifeNews.com, NewsBusters.org, UrbanGrounds, Mediaite, The Radio Equalizer, The Right Scoop, Randy’s Roundtable, The Daily What, Steve Rothaus’ Gay …, The Moderate Voice, Conservatives4Palin, Israel Matzav, Indecision Forever, Gawker, Questions and Observations, Poynter, Klein Online, Shakesville, KDVR.com is the website …, Atlas Shrugs, Jammie Wearing Fools, The Daily Caller and Gothamist — More at Memeorandum and MediaGazer