TOP TEN DEAD OF 2008

1. GEORGE CARLIN Most Stand-up comics tend to morph into something else as their careers "evolve", generally becoming either half-baked actors or taking on talk shows, or some other supposed greater entertainment challenge. George Carlin did a few movies, but for the most part remained a stand-up comic right to the end. A stellar, long-term career of social observation and absurdest humor. He proved, as Lenny Bruce did, that stand-up is an art form all its own.
2. BETTIE PAGE America is, and always has been, sexually Puritanical. But no more so than it was in the mid-twentieth century. Along came Bettie Page who stood before us completely nude and completely joyous. This wasn't the pornography that adolescent males stared at by flashlight under their covers, it was unabashed, unembarrassed sensuality that celebrated the human form as a work of art and not something nasty that needed to be covered up. Even Bettie's S & M images -campy, surrealistic - are difficult to view without a smile.
3. PAUL NEWMAN What more can be said about a man who reached the heights of his craft, spent fifty years married to the same woman, and devoted much time and money to charities? Role model? Hero? He had that bemused grin, even in the most trying of circumstances, making us feel that he knew something we didn't, and that he would make everything ok.
4. DON HELMS This is a name that not many will recognize. Don Helms was the steel guitar player for Hank Williams during Williams' final and most productive years. I met Helms in 1996 and he was the most down-to-earth friendly person you will ever meet. He was playing with Williams' daughter Jett on a concert tour. Jett's "talents" are questionable, but when Mr. Helms played Cold, Cold Heart solo on his steel guitar it was a musical moment of sublime proportion. Country/Bluegrass musicians rarely get recognized as great musicians, but their talents are as accomplished as in any other genre.
5. CYD CHARISSE In "Silk Stockings" there is a sequence where Cyd Charisse removes her black stockings and puts on her silk stockings. It is one of the most beautiful and sensual scenes of any musical. It is proof that a woman can also be sexy with her clothes on. Cyd Charisse matched all of her male dancing counterparts step for step, even besting Gene Kelly in their gorgeous dance number in "Singin' in the Rain." A class act on and off the screen.
6. HEATH LEDGER Before Heath Ledger's death there were some scenes from "The Dark Night" that leaked out. One short sequence showed Ledger as The Joker with his head sticking out of a moving automobile. The look on his face of stark, uninhibited evil, was spellbinding. Once seeing the entire film, the performance takes on more and more depth until a scene where The Joker, dressed as a nurse, exits a hospital he has just blown up. He walks down the street, the brilliance of Ledger added to the incredible feeling of loss that the viewer feels, combine for one of the year's most powerful moments on film.
7. MICHAEL DEBAKEY Is it even possible to fathom that someone is able to place an artificial heart into the body of a human being? Debakey's pioneering in the medical field is astonishing. From performing or assisting on nearly 20,000 heart-related surgeries to developing the concept of the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH). Doing all that he did to better the human condition and living to the age of ninety nine, what a full, valuable life.
8. JEFF HEALEY Blind electric guitar player who taught himself how to play holding the instrument on his lap. And when he played a solo, he rose to his feet and my neck hairs went up with him.
9. BO DIDDLEY True musical pioneer and developer of "The Bo Diddley Beat" a rhythm that was an inspiration to many early Rock and Roll musicians including Buddy Holly, consequently being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Diddley was also one of the first musicians to hire women on a regular basis as his band members.
10. CHARLTON HESTON No one uttered over-the-top grandiose dialogue with the jaw-set conviction of Mr. Heston. Who else could possibly have played Moses or Judah Ben Hur?

TOP TEN DEAD OF 2007

1 INGMAR BERGMAN Greatest film director who ever lived. Period.

2 LUCIANO PAVAROTTI Greatest operatic tenor who ever lived. Period.

3 BENAZIR BHUTTO Loyal, courageous, .............hero.

4 KURT VONNEGUT, JR. and so it goes...........................

5 CHARLES LANE You won't recognize the name, but google it and you'll recognize the face from hundreds of movies and television shows.

6 WALTER SCHIRRA Original Mercury 7 astronaut. True American hero.

7 NORMAN MAILER Great American writer.

8 EDDIE ROBINSON Grambling football coach. Teacher of athletes and men.

9 IKE TURNER Music pioneer. True rock and roll influence.

10 EVEL KNIEVEL Silly choice? But, man, he was a true daredevil.

Ending on a high note - Luciano Pavarotti

There are a few musical moments in my life that stand out in my memory. Hearing Don Helms play "Cold, Cold Heart" on the steel guitar without any accompaniment, hearing Miles Davis' haunting, dissonant trumpet moan over a wall of jazz created by his unparalleled band, Jimmie Vaughan playing a guitar solo of "Six String Down," a tribute to his late brother Stevie Ray, Freddie Fender and Flaco Jiminez playing and singing Tex Mex like no one else as members of The Texas Tornadoes, and of course, Luciano Pavarotti singing "Pagliacci." Luciano was one of those rare few whose talents shattered genre boundaries and introduced the whole world to his craft. Opera is indeed the human voice at its most exalted. Bravo, Luciano.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Merv Griffin was an average interviewer at best, sometimes asking painfully obvious questions. His sense of humor was pedestrian. But there is one thing I will forever be grateful to the man for - JEOPARDY!! Quite simply the greatest game show every invented. It is trivia with a barrage of questions, or should I say, answers. It has that one inversion that seems simple, but that keeps an invisible edge to the show. It is a show that starts out with simpler questions where we can all join in and ends with difficult ones where we can all marvel at a contestant's knowledge, or shock ourselves on that rare occasion when we have the answer to Final Jeopardy. Damn, now I'll be humming that Final Jeopardy tune all day! - Todd

INGMAR BERGMAN (1918 - 2007)

The first time I viewed an Ingmar Bergman film, now some quarter century ago in my college film studies class, I came to realize that in the right hands, cinema was as great an art form as any other. It can be ranked with the greatest symphonies, paintings, or sculpture. For me, what Bergman does, as the greatest artists do, is reduce the human experience down to the very elements that are the most universal common denominators. That being, the meaning of life, love, and ultimately death. Bergman's spare, haunting images, the black and white ones in particular, seem bleak to some, but to me pare away all exterior elements and leave the soul bare to examine these denominators. These potent images, aided by Bergman's life-long collaborator and cinematographer, Sven Nykvist, take us out of our comfortable, safe lairs and force us to take a conscious, existential look at ourselves. Bergman was a perfectionist, sometimes taking days to just watch how light moved through a church as the sun passed over. This meticulous attention to detail is why Michelangelo languished for years over the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It is how a "visionary" is defined. And although I have seen all of Bergman's work I still go back to my favorite - Wild Strawberries. It is the film that opened my cinematic eye all those years ago. It is about a college professor traveling to receive an honorary degree. As he travels his mind takes a journey of its own with dreams and reminiscences that all have the Bergman touches. They encompass everything from horror to humor (something in Bergman's repertoire that is often overlooked.) Another forte' of Bergman's is the spiritual lumination of the human face. Sven Nykvist's lighting often sets the mood and tone, but Bergman's faces tell their own stories. The professor (played masterfully by Swedish director Victor Sjostrom) often relays more with just his Bergman-filtered visage than a Shakespearean soliloquy. It seems I have blogged on a little long and may even have gotten a bit overwrought, even pretentious, but when it comes to Ingmar Bergman, just speaking of him sets my soul aflame. I think Woody Allen pretty much summed it up when he said "Ingmar Bergman is probably the greatest film artist since the invention of the motion picture camera." - Todd (The Death 2ur)

JUNE....................a hero passes

Most of us are familiar with the iconic image of the soldiers raising the American Flag over Iwo Jima in World War II. What many don't know, however, is that this was actually the second flag raising, which was staged for photographers. Clint Eastwood's recent film Flags of Our Fathers has helped to disseminate this information to the general public. It is sad that it has taken so long for these original heroes to receive their just recognition. The last of those men, Charles Lindberg, a fellow Minnesotan, passed away in June. Just prior to his death, Mr. Lindbergh was assisting in the development of an All-Veterans Memorial in Richfield, Minnesota. The Memorial is to have a bust of Charles Lindberg as its centerpiece. Mr. Lindberg, however, insisted that the memorial be about all veterans and was concerned that it would become more about him. Even if the memorial features Charles more prominently, he represents all of those who anonymously gave of themselves for our freedoms.

MAY GOODBYES

• Being a person of the 70's I grew up listening to 8-Tracks and wearing Technicolor polyester pants. I also was around for one of the haydays of TV gameshows. Matchgame was a watchable time-killer with the obtrusive, sporadically funny Richard Dawson and the Bela Lugosi-looking, none-too-quick-witted Gene Rayburn. But, when I knew Charles Nelson Reilly was going to be one of the panelists, I knew that the show would be a cut above the others. Charles passed away in May and I will forever remember his comic aplomb and his self-deprecating "flamboyance." Hell, you have to give a great deal of credit to anyone who can make Brett Somers seem funny. - Todd
• Even though the Virginia Tech tragedy took place in April, we would like to remember the students and faculty who lost their lives that day. In this disposable world, it seems that people are already forgetting.