I'm delirious with jet lag, but what the hell. On one of my plane rides, I read the obituary for Michael Foot from the Times of London. Here is a perfect example of a man who outlived his fame. In fact, here was a man who outlived the guy who wrote his obituary by nearly 20 years. This was so striking a delay for an obituary that the Times of London thought it necessary to have Tam Dalyell (who knew both) write a quasi-obit for Foot, because the early '90s obit that had been written by Lord somebody or other lacked the perspective of the subsequent years. And on top of that, Foot's biographer, Mervyn Jones, died in February. Now I can't find the clipping I got on the plane of the signed obits. The obit online at The Times seem to be quite different and is unsigned. Perhaps I was hallucinating? (No, I've since figured it out. It was The Independent I was reading. They sign their obits.)

In any case, Foot was a much-beloved, completely ineffective left-wing leader. He led the Labour Party at a time when his leadership of the Labour Party meant Labour would not be living at 10 Downing. He was also a bibliophile and a man of letters. He was a distinguished journalist and author, and he cared about the people he represented. I like what Neil Kinnock had to say in the Guardian obituary, so I'm posting it:

And let us give Bill Schenley and the Rookie of the Year (yes, I believe we can already give out this award), Roxanne Wiggs, the 5 points they so richly deserve. Two for the hit and 3 for the duet.

— Amelia

Corey Haim, the 38-year-old one-time actor, has died as a result of his Deathmatch with Eric Roberts. The Deathmatch was to crown the Straight to Video champion. A crown the undefeated Roberts continues to hold. Nobody does it more often than Roberts, but Corey Haim gave it his best shot.

So another medium-talent dope fiend is dead. Big whoop. Here's the thing about drug addicts, medium talent or otherwise ... There is no expectation of life after each fix/snort/drag/enema or whatever the new-age preferred method of ingestion might be ... So if I hear or read about one more half-a-fucking retard whine about what a tragedy Corey Haim's death was ... I'll ... I'll ... Okay, I probably won't do anything ... 'Cause, you know, it just wasn't that important to me.

Anyway, this guy was in rehab more than he was in the studio. He's been on deadpool lists since he was 16 years old. I mean, he was a huge freakin' star in the '80s and '90s ... but his Tiger Beat fan club was never as big as his deadpool fan base. Players were not just hoping he died, they were buying bulk-load Corey Haim Voodoo dolls. He was just too good of a pick to pass up.

And I'll tell you about someone else who didn't think The Lost Boy's death was a fucking tragedy ... The fist-pumper. Denise. I don't even want to guess what Denise did when she heard that Corey was being fitted for a new wooden stake. Denise gets 20 points for the hit and five more for the solo. Total: 25.

— Bill Schenley

He was ranked by The Sporting News at number 25 on their list of the 100 Greatest Football Players; he was a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Utah Sports Hall of Fame, the Utah State University Hall of Fame, and the All-Academic All-American Hall of Fame. Merlin Olsen (another fucking Mormon) was also the MVP of the 1961 East-West Shrine game, and MVP of the Hula Bowl. He was voted to the USU All-Century team, he was voted to the Newspaper Enterprise Association All-Time All-America team, and he was named to the 75th Anniversary Sun Bowl team. He was a two-time All-American and a three-time Academic All-American. He won the 1961 Outland Trophy and he was the 1962 NFL Rookie of the Year.

The awards/honors list for this guy is just about fucking endless.

He was the MVP of the 1968 Pro Bowl and nine times he was a member of the All-Pro team and he was named to the Pro Bowl team 14 times. In 1974 he was given the Bert Bell Award. Olsen was also named to the 1960s All-Decade and the 1970s All-Decade teams, along with the 75th Anniversary NFL team. He was the 1974 NFLPA's Lineman of the Year and many times he was voted Lineman of the Week.

And then there was these: Walter Camp Man of the Year in 1962, and in 1982, in Utah, he was named Athlete of the Century. He was also elected into the California Sports Hall of Fame. He won an Oscar for sound editing in an animation short, and an Emmy for his work on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. And if all of that isn't enough for you, the St. Louis Rams, where Merlin Olsen never played even a down of football, has retired his jersey number, 74.

Sadly, however, CIB and Morris the Cat never really saw the human side of Merlin Olsen. They were not impressed with his Obie or his Grammy or the very prestigious International Director's Guild award he received for his "Wedding Planning: The Documentary." No. They just remember that Blair Buswell is creating an asbestos statue to sit outside Merlin Olsen Field somewhere in Utah — an asbestos statue that the FTD Florist guy is too dead to ever see. For their callous indifference, they each get eleven points ... and for the PAT ... an extra three. Total: 14.

— Bill Schenley

Peter Graves spent the early 1950s making a bunch of movies. Some were really bad, like It Conquered the World and Beginning of the End, but there were also good ones, like Stalag 17. Although he was appearing regularly in films, Graves decided to do a TV series: Fury, a western aimed at kids. It ran and ran for eons. Then, a few years later, Graves replaced Steven Hill as the team leader on Mission: Impossible. Eventually, amid a lot of other work, there was Airplane!

Watching Graves, you could believe that his 10,000-acre ranch on Fury could be run solely by him, his juvenile-delinquent ward from "the big city," and an old drunk. You could believe that his team of spies could sneak into an Iron Curtain country, make convincing disguises out of latex gloves and cat dander, and get away with doing what needed to get done that week. You could even believe that he liked gladiator movies maybe a little too much. An actor might consider himself lucky to have played one iconic role during a career, but Graves managed the hat trick, and for that he remains well-remembered by three generations of TV-watchers and moviegoers. Not bad. Not bad at all.

— Brad

This hit is due to Kixco's belief that Sir Edmund Hillary is still alive. Let me explain. Remember what I said about not having dead dudes on your list? She had two. And one of them was replaced with Peter Graves. So she owes me a few points for finding Hillary on her list and asking for the replacement. If the other one kicks the bucket this year, we'll just have to invent an award for Kixco. Graves was 83, so Kixco gets 5 for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 10.

Fess Parker, who has died at 85, was born at the top of a mountain in Tennessee, which is one of the greenest states in America. Parker, who was raised in a woodland area, soon knew every tree in the forest and, by the time he was three, had actually killed a bear. He was quite a celebrated character in his native frontier.

Parker enlisted in the United States Navy in 1944 and fought single-handed through the war until the Japs were beaten and he had brought peace throughout the world. This, of course, was an extremely difficult task but it did, however, establish Parker as a legend for the rest of his life.

After the war, Parker became involved in politics and served briefly as a Tennessee state representative and, later in Washington, as a congressman. Although only in office for a short time, history records Parker not only fixed up the government but was a tremendous asset when it came to reading constitutional law. Parker all but took over Washington, so they say. And while he was being honored in Philadelphia, he repaired the Old Yankee Bell. Parker was known for his perspective on honor and duty.

Returning to his home in Tennessee when his career in politics had concluded, Parker decided to move his family to another state. The western march had just commenced, so Parker packed his family — his wife, Betsy ("Good old Betsy," as he used to call her) and their children — and with a huge smile on his face he began to follow the bright light to the west. Fess Parker was a leading pioneer in the Santa Barbara, California area.

Parker believed that his land in Santa Barbara was the biggest and best. All the way from the seashore to the mountains. His many friends would tell you that Mr. Parker was ahead of most of us when it came to, as they say in Santa Barbara, "meeting the test."

Abby and R H Draney, for one day only, are the King and Queen of the Wild Frontier of Deadpooling. They each get five for their first hit of the year and an additional three bonus points for being the only ones to pull their coonskin caps out of mothballs and offer up both Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone in the same moment. Total: 8.

— Bill Schenley

Girija Prasad Koirala was so little known outside Nepal that, when word of G.P.'s death reached Lithuania last March, Algirdas Brazauskas turned to his wife and asked, "Who's the nobody?"

G.P., as everyone called him, was prime minister of Nepal four times between 1991 and 2008, usually for a year or two each time. As prime minister, he was also Nepal's head of state for a year and a half after Nepal finally dumped its king in 2007. The Nepalese Congress wanted G.P. to be named the first president of the new republic, but the local Maoists, who hated him, said no. G.P. took this with his customary good grace and immediately quit as prime minister but, since there was no president, there was no one for G.P. to give his resignation to. Poor G.P. was stuck with the job until Congress finally dredged up some sucker willing to be president, even with all those pesky Maoists skulking around. The very day the new president was sworn in, G.P. finally tendered his resignation and hurried home before anybody could stick him with the job again.

By the way, Nepal is best known for two things. One, its flag is the only non-rectangular national flag in the world (the Nepalese flag is that sawtoothy thing up there in the graphic), and this uncommon unrectangularity is a big deal to vexilogists worldwide. Two, about ten years ago the Nepalese crown prince, Dipendra, got drunk at a party at the royal palace and was ordered to leave by his father, King Birendra. Instead, Dipendra went and got a couple of guns, came back to the party, and mowed down Queen Mom and King Dad and a bunch of other relatives before turning one of the weapons on himself. The crown prince, who was now King Dipendra, lingered in a coma for three days before dying. It seems G.P. got off lucky.

The mighty Mo gets five points for the hit, and another five for one of the loneliest solos of the year. Total: 10.

— Brad

He wasn't another fucking Mormon. Let's be precise. He was another fucking Jack Mormon. Now I had no idea what that meant so not only do I learn something new every day in alt.obituaries, I learn something new in the replies to deadpool posts. (Look at the update on Merlin Olsen to see what I'm referring to.) A Jack Mormon is someone who is not a duly baptized — or whatever it is those fucking Mormons do to become Mormons — Mormon, he supported the goals of the Mormons, but didn't necessarily practice or refrain from doing whatever it is that Mormons practice or refrain from doing. According to the Urban Dictionary, Jack Mormon is right up there with Yom Kippur Jew. Self-identification with a side of independent thinking.

Neither was Stewart Udall just another policy wonk. As Secretary of the Interior, the Interior came first. Under his watch, there were landmark statutes on conservation issues related to air, water and land. He was the guy who made sure our tax dollars go for national parks and seashores along with all the other crap it goes to. Nearly 4 million acres of land were acquired during his years. Parks, monuments, recreation areas, wildlife refuges, historic sites. He even helped saved Carnegie Hall. And it was his idea to have Robert Frost at Kennedy's inauguration. We haven't had a decent poet there since.

Here's a lovely story by journalist Dave Lindorff. It involves hippies, folk music and true representation in government.

Jenstrikesagain and this time it's a solo. She gets 2 for the hit, and 5 for the solo. Total: 7. Nice one.

— Amelia

There isn't a lot out there about Operation HALYARD, probably because it was classified for a long time and downplayed by the Allies for political reasons. Don't bother with the Wikipedia article — it's an unholy mess. (Even worse than this update.) There's some mention of the mission in one of the biographies of Ridgway out there — but don't ask me which one. I don't even remember what Ridgway had to do with it, specifically.

Basically, the situation in mid-1944 was this: Over the previous eighteen or so months, hundreds of Allied aircrewmen had bailed out over the Balkans, mostly from bombing missions being sent to Romanian oil drilling and refining facilities. Most of them were successfully evading capture (there wasn't a lot of effort put into finding them in that terrain) and were being housed by Chetnik partisans in Yugoslavia. More about those assholes in a minute.

So the Allies decided Something Must Be Done to get our guys out. The answer was, "Parachute some guys in to build an airfield, then we'll fly C-47s in, load 'em up with guys, fly out, repeat until finished." And that is what they did. Jibilian was the radio operator for the mission. He was Navy (where the best radiomen always come from) assigned to OSS.

Five guys. Five guys went in behind Nazi lines, coordinated the building of the airfield, called in the rescue, and stayed while 513 airmen were evacuated. Then they got out on the last transport. No one was lost.

One reason the mission has been downplayed is that the commander of the Serbian side of the operation, one Drazha Mikhailovich, was a right bastard. He may have coined (in Serbian) the term "ethnic cleansing." Whether he named the practice or not, he certainly was an enthusiastic practitioner. His forces certainly murdered at least 150,000 non-Serbs, and some claim it was more like 300,000. (That latter figure is from Wikipedia, with an [unreliable source?] notation.) Tito finally had a bullet put in Mikhailovich's head a couple of years after the war.

As no one wanted to dredge all this up by making a big fuss about Chetniks and Mikhailovich, Jibilian and his comrades went largely unsung.

At age 86, Jibilian yields up 5 points for the hit and 5 for the solo for JD. Total: 10.

— JD Baldwin

We might sneer cynically at the blond newsreader with the precision haircut sitting behind our local TV station's newsdesk as he reads a story of war or disaster from his TelePrompTer with a tear in his eye, but we usually take the photos running behind him for granted. We don't think about the anonymous photojournalist who spent three hours travelling in the wheel well of a Jeep and the better part of a day hiding behind a bullet-scarred wall to bring us those shots. Maybe, though, we should take a moment to consider her, because those images are what history is made of.

For much of the '80s and '90s, Margaret Moth was that anonymous photojournalist. She was the one who through hard work and courage brought the awful reality of everyday life in places like Bosnia, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Sierra Leone, and the West Bank to our homes. The cigar-smoking, astoundingly beautiful skydiving Goth who loved antiques, owned an apartment with a view of Notre Dame Cathedral, wore her boots to bed, was friends with almost everyone she worked with, and enjoyed sickeningly sweet Iraqi ice cream was considered one of the best photojournalists in the world. She didn't even let having half her face shot off (and catching hepatitis C from the transfusion afterwards that saved her life) stop her. But tough didn't mean hard or mean: In real life Margaret Moth was known as a kind, modest, warm woman who simply enjoyed the hell out of life. She didn't even blame the sniper who shot her, reasoning that she was the one who had chosen to be in a war zone. Why did she become a photojournalist? Because she wanted to see history unfold firsthand, she said, and because she wanted other people to see it too. Which is about the best reason for becoming a journalist I've ever heard.

Anything that could out-tough Margaret Moth has to be a bastard, and colon cancer certainly fits that description. She was 58 years old when it took her, kicking and screaming all the way.

— Charlene

Charlene and DDT get the duet. That's 14 for the hit and a bonus of 3. Total: 17. That sends Charlene much closer to the top of the standings.

OMGotterdammerung! I thought this would be boring! I hadn't read the obits yet. He's got the plots of about 5 operas in his bio. I don't even know where to begin. Well, how about the beginning. He was the grandson of Richard Wagner, the composer of the most boring operas every composed. (Although not everyone agrees with me on this one, I have the floor.) Grandson Wagner ran the Bayreuth Festival, one of the world's most famous summer musical festivals. He was the dictator, um, I mean, director of the festival for something like 60 years, the last ten of which the entire family fought like katzen und hunde over the succession. From the NY Times obit:

"Would Bayreuth's new leader be Mr. Wagner's second wife? His estranged daughter from his first marriage? His niece, the author of a bitter family biography? Or the glamorous young daughter from his second marriage, who in 2007 directed a 'Meistersinger' at Bayreuth that featured, The New York Times reported, 'topless dancers, full male nudity, plastic phalluses and a bizarre auto-da-fé'?"

Then there was the whole Nazi thing. You wouldn't believe how much trouble they've had since the days when Hitler (his mother's close friend "Uncle Wolf") would show up at all the festivals. Even with all their denazification, there was still a shadow hanging over the proceedings. It didn't help that he censored the archives which revealed a friendly relationship with the bad guys.

It's a remarkable story and I'm sure there are people polishing librettos as we speak. For all I know, there have already been some real dramas performed.

Here are the Telegraph and Guardian obits, both amazing.

Oddly enough, because I decided to write this today, today was the memorial concert at Bayreuth attended by 1500 people, one of them German Chancellor Angela Merkel. I attended a concert last fall in Berlin with Chancellor Merkel in attendance, so that's not such a big deal, really.

Half the family boycotted the memorial.

Philip, all the way over there in Australia, has gotten a solo on the 90-year-old Wolfgang. I'd give him the ring, but I think he'd rather have the 7 points — 2 for the hit and 5 for the solo and the lead in hits until I finish the updates.

— Amelia

The first time Herb Ellis listened to Charlie Christian, he became so emotional that he shelved his guitar, vowing never to play it again. A day later he pulled the guitar down and it would be many years before that unmistakable guitar sound would be shelved again. Herb Ellis, best known as one-third of the Oscar Peterson Trio, has died. He was 88.

And while most Herb Ellis fans prefer the sound of the Oscar Peterson Trio (Peterson on piano and Ray Brown on bass were the other two-thirds), or Soft Winds, or Great Guitars (with Barney Kessell and Charlie Byrd), I'll remember one of his last recordings, "Texas Swings," recorded with Willie Nelson, Johnny Gimble, Floyd Domino and Tommy Alsup. In 1960 he recorded a tribute to Charlie Christian, "Thank You, Mr. Christian." Thank you, Mr. Ellis, for sixty years of precise, uncluttered and outstanding guitar work.

Garrett scores five for the hit and an extra five bonus points for this uncompromising, melodic solo.

— Bill Schenley

Lane Bradbury, Bonnie Landford, Maureen Moore, Tracy Venner, Christen Tassin, Kate Reinders, Heather Tepe, Leigh Ann Larkin, Sami Gayle. These names may not mean much to you, but they were the bane of June Havoc's existence. For those are the children who wanted to entertain you and make you smile and the slightly older version who supposed that if Mama was married, she wouldn't have to elope with one of the boys in the act never to be heard from again. Those are the Baby/Dainty Junes of Broadway. Gypsy is, of course, one of the great musicals. Music by Styne, words by Sondheim, the score is pretty much perfect. The overture is sublime. The only slight problem was that the real Dainty June never got to tell her side of the story and she lived a very long time with that bitterness. It didn't seem to slow her down any. The real one was heard from again, and often. She was cast time and time again as a tough broad and I suspect it was typecasting. She was quite a successful actress on the stage and in films. (A self-hating Jew in Gentleman's Agreement!) She wrote her own memoirs that also made it to the stage but without the benefit of a catchy score. She appeared before HUAC to protest with the best of them. She endowed a little Off-Off Broadway theater. She directed and was nominated for a Tony. She appeared on What's My Line. She did a soap opera. She had a few marriages, one of which looked to be pretty successful. And she outlived her conniving mother and her lethal sister by 56 and 40 years. (And a daughter, alas, by 10.)

Her name was June, what's yours? In the AO Deadpool, it's Tim J, a brand new player who's real good and now feels good, with this solo for the 97-year-old Ms. Havoc. Tim J gets 2 for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 7. He's very versatile.

— Amelia