An absolutely fantastic update (and poem!) from Jim Thornton, which he told me he loved writing and I should give him more to do. So I wrote and asked him to do the Lithuanian president and, curiously, never heard from him again. [Later: But I did. See here.] Anyway, thanks, Jim. For your first hit of the year, you get 13 points.

* * *

Beryl Bainbridge, English novelist, died 2 July 2010 aged 77.

When she caught her husband having an affair, Beryl Bainbridge divorced him and started writing. But no one wanted to publish her, and they still got on, so she let him back. Second time round she made him live in the basement and pay rent, but then she misbehaved, and he moved out for good. Sometime later his mother turned up at the door and tried to shoot her. Her life remained famously chaotic — single mother of three children, she never remarried, but had loads of affairs, mainly with hopeless married men, until she eventually "gave up sex at 60." It all went in the novels.

Born in Liverpool to a bankrupt salesman and resentful mother, life was grim for the child but great for the novelist. A short career as an actress — in the 1960s she had a minor role in the TV soap Coronation Street, and factory jobs, most famously in a bottling plant — provided more material for the black comedies. Once she got going, they came almost annually — The Dressmaker (1973), The Bottle Factory Outing (1974), Sweet William (1975), A Quiet Life (1976), An Awfully Big Adventure (1989).

Later she turned to fictionalised historical events — Young Adolf (1978), about Hitler's trip to Liverpool; Watson's Apology (1984), about a vicar who murdered his wife; The Birthday Boys (1991), about Scott of the Antarctic; According to Queeney (2001), about Dr Johnson; Every Man for Himself (1996), about the Titanic; and Master Georgie (1998), about the Crimean War. At her death, she was writing The Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress, about the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

Although at least four novels were made into films — Hugh Grant starred in An Awfully Big Adventure — and she was shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, she never won. All the more reason to read her. Missing out on fancy literary prizes is usually a good sign, and her novels were short, sad, dirty and funny. She smoked and drank heavily, and breast cancer eventually got her. But at least today, let's do what she would have done — stick up two fingers to the health police, light a fag, open a novel, and raise a glass. If you're under 60 and can find a willing partner, have a shag in her memory too.

— Jim Thornton

Beryl Bainbridge wrote about sex
And death and destruction,
But still made us laugh
About Dr Johnson

She saw the funny side
Of murder and war.
She once dodged a bullet
From her mother-in-law

She loved a lot of men
And wrote about Sweet William
But she ended up single
And gave up fornication.

Some people just thought
She did a bit of acting
In Coronation Street,
And wrote about bottling.

So, although her books were short,
And funny and wise,
Perhaps that's why
They never gave her the prize

Jim Thornton, Nottingham.
3 July 2010

Reggie Jackson once said of Bob Sheppard, Yankees announcer for over 56 years and who recently died at 99, "He is the voice of God." Jackson further added, "When he said my number, 'Forty ... Four,' it was like it was a higher number."

From Mantle to Jeter, New York Yankees introduced into the baseball game told of the chill they felt each time Bob Sheppard spoke their name through the public address system. (Sheppard's reply to Mantle: "Every time I introduced you, Mick, I got chills.") Former Red Sox outfielder and hall of famer Carl Yastrzemski was quoted, "You're not a major leaguer until Bob Sheppard announces your name."

I took an hour to look at a flower
A day to examine a shell.
A week went by as I watched the sky
O, time has treated me well.

— Robert Leo Sheppard

During the course of his career as a public address announcer, besides the New York Yankees (baseball) and the New York Giants (football), Bob Sheppard worked St. John's college football and basketball games, Adelphi College football, the New York Titans (Jets) of the American Football League, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees football games in the All-American Football Conference, the New York Stars football games in the World Football League, International Soccer League games played at the Polo Grounds, the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League, and the Army Black Knights football games.

A testament to Bob Sheppard's skill as a PA announcer is that fans across baseball knew who he was. Most of those fans couldn't name the announcer for their own favorite team.

His voice will continue to announce shortstop Derek Jeter for the rest of Jeter's baseball career. And, if you should ever dial Derek Jeter's cell phone, it will be Bob Sheppard asking you to leave a message for the future Yankee hall of famer.

But don't tell Derek that Bill Schenley, Dead Batteries, Erik and Exuma all had Bob in the AO Deadpool. They each get two points for stifling the voice of God.

Additional: By Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

"Now batting, the catcher, number two, Kenji Johjima. Number two."

— Bob Sheppard
September 5th 2007

I asked Hulka to write this because I just knew he was the guy to give me a fabulous update. Proved me right.

* * *

Let us now say goodbye to an excellent Fug. (And who among us doesn't love a good Fug?)

Sometime in the early '50s, minor Beat poet Tuli Kupferberg decided he'd lost the ability to love, and jumped off the Manhattan Bridge in despair. The incident earned him a howl-out in Allen Ginsberg's Howl, though Ginsberg got the bridge wrong.* Fifty-odd years later, "world's oldest rock star" Tuli Kupferberg recorded "Septuagenarian in Love," a wry update of Dion and the Belmonts' Teenager in Love from an elderly Lothario's perspective.

In between, Kupferberg was many things: singer, actor, cartoonist, magazine editor and, above all, Fug. Joined by co-conspirator Ed Sanders and a motley crew of speed freaks, session pros and the occasional Pulitzer-winning playwright, Kupferberg was the heart and soul of the Fugs, the Lower East Side's first of many contributions to the history of shaggy rock noise. (The story goes that he and Sanders saw the Beatles on TV and said to each other, "Hell, we could do that.") Both in sound and in aesthetic, the Fugs looked backward to the Beats and the urban folk movement of the '50s and forward to the DIY, anything-goes punk scene of the '70s, while their strident politics (sex and drugs, good; war, not so much) put them in the midst of the counterculture. Their music wandered from locker-room chants to country-fried settings of William Blake poems to sharp critiques of '60s morality, getting more polished with each record but never losing its basic irreverence. Among Kupferberg's songwriting contributions were two of the funniest antiwar songs of the era, "CIA Man" (which plays over the end credits of the Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading) and the gunfire-riddled "Kill for Peace"; his best work may be the mournful, martial "Nothing," an unlikely blend of Yiddish folk music and Tuvan throat singing.

After the Fugs fell apart at the end of the '60s, Kupferberg moved on to the Revolting Theater ("Radical Vaudeville: We Play at Divorces, Bar Mitzvahs, Revolutions") and a long list of books with titles like The Old Fucks at Home and I Hate Poems About Poems About Poems, before reuniting with Sanders and others to Fug some more. In his last years, he took to the Internet, broadcasting poetry and song parodies on his own YouTube channel.

For a look back at the man in his own words, check out this excellent interview.

Tuli Fugged off for the last time on July 12th after several years of poor health. He was 86. I (Hulka), Bill Schenley, and Doubletap get six points each: five for the hit and one for the trio. (Editor's note: Bill is the first player this year to hit for the cycle.)

—————

*After Tuli's death, his sidekick, one Thelma Blitz, wrote in to the Village Voice to allege that Ginsberg's version of the story had taken poetic license with more than just the bridge: she claimed that, far from "walk[ing] away unknown and forgotten," Tuli racked up his back, had to be rescued by a tugboat, and spent the next few weeks in a body cast. Go figure.

— Hulka

He was the greatest sports team owner EVER! There is no one to even compare him with. He changed, for the better, the face of sports in the United States. While other baseball team owners lamented the onset of free agency, George M. Steinbrenner saw its value and exploited it like it belonged only to him. The Boss died July 13th at 80.

In the beginning, 1973, when he and a group of investors purchased the New York Yankees for $8.8 million (of that, Steinbrenner initially invested only $180,000), George Steinbrenner vowed not to get involved with day-to-day baseball operations. That promise lasted less than a few minutes. When The Boss entered the executive offices at Yankee Stadium for the first time, he noticed flowers on all the desks of his support staff. Turning around, looking at all the flowers, Steinbrenner asked, "Is it Secretary's Day?" When he was told that the flowers were sent to the staff daily by Mike Burke (one of the minority owners), George M. Steinbrenner not only took over the day-to-day operations, he took over the minute-to-minute operations as well.

For the better part of the next thirty-seven years, baseball fans (Yankee fans included) hated The Boss, who meddled in everything from flowers on a desk to making out the line-up cards. The Boss was underfoot. His feuds with Billy Martin and Dave Winfield, his fanciful story of a fist fight with Dodger fans in an elevator in Los Angeles, the shoddy way he treated Yankee legend Yogi Berra, his conviction for an illegal campaign contribution to Richard Nixon, and countless other stories, fables and tales, were back-page fodder for the New York tabloids. But he promised to restore the glory of Yankee past when he took over the team in 1973 and, at great expense to himself, he kept that promise. Under Steinbrenner's watch, the New York Yankees appeared in the playoffs 19 times. They were the American League champions 11 times, and they were world champions seven times.

In the mid-1970s, Steinbrenner was interviewed by a Cleveland magazine, and he stated, "Some guys can lead through real, genuine respect, but I'm not that kind of a leader." In his thirty-seven years as the New York Yankees owner, George Steinbrenner employed twenty-three managers and fourteen general managers. (See below.)

Still, there was another side to The Boss, one most of us never knew about — his generosity. His father, Henry George Steinbrenner, once told him, "If you do something nice for someone, and more than two people know about it, you did it for the wrong reason." It was a lesson the Yankee principal owner would take to heart. Millions to The Boys and Girls Club of America — not only for sports equipment, but for computers, too. He was a major fund raiser for Grambling University. He saved the sports programs at two different high schools using his own money, he spent a quarter of a million dollars on an operation for a woman he had never met, and like so many other causes and charities he donated to, he asked only one thing in return ... a promise of privacy.

Love him or hate him, no owner has ever been better for his team. And all of baseball owes him a debt of gratitude. He will go into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

For the most part, the following deserve one another. They are either born liars, or convicted liars and, sadly, they are all about to be rewarded for toe-tagging at the plate, The Boss, George M. Steinbrenner III: ???Guest, Allen Kirshner, Chipmunk Roasting, Constant Irritant, Dead Batteries, Deepstblu, Denise, Direcorbie, Erik, Hulka, Mark, Mo, Monarc, Team Bubba (first of the year!), Tim J, Undertaker and Worm Farmer. If I had my way, I'd trade the lot of you to Tyler Chicken in Arkansas. Unfortunately, as it stands, you all get five points. Total: 5.

— Bill Schenley

This hit list will tell you more about Hank Cochran, who died on July 15 at 74:

'The Chair'
'I Fall to Pieces'
'She's Got You'
'Why Can't He Be You'
'Make the World Go Away'
'A Little Bitty Tear'
'Funny Way of Laughin''
'It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad)'
'That's All That Matters'
'Sally Was a Good Old Girl'
'This Ain't My First Rodeo'
'Don't You Ever Get Tired (Of Hurting Me)'

He wrote hit songs for a Who's Who of Country Music recording artists and, while playing at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in Nashville, he discovered a young singer/songwriter named Willie Nelson.

Hank Cochran's songs were recorded by, among others, Eddy Arnold, Patsy Cline, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Natalie Cole, Henry Mancini, Linda Ronstadt, the two Elvises (Presley and Costello), Merle Haggard, Vern Gosdin, Emmylou Harris, Dinah Shore, Burl Ives, Ray Price, Norah Jones, Lee Ann Womack, Jim Reeves, Dean Martin, Reba McEntire, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Ronnie Milsap, Johnny Paycheck, George Strait, Johnny Paycheck and Hank Williams Jr.

I guess that means he could write a song.

I don't think Morris the Cat can write a song, and I doubt he fell to pieces over the death of Mr. Cochran ... not when he gets five solo bonus points tacked on to the eight points for the hit. Total: 13.

— Bill Schenley

Kathi and Wendy got the duet. Wendy sent along the update. It's lovely, isn't it?

* * *

Theo Albrecht was frugal, secretive, wealthy, and played well with his brother Karl. Together they founded Aldi, a company that reflects its founders.

Frugal: Albrecht took notes with the stubs of pencils, wore off-the-rack suits, and haggled with his own kidnapper over the ransom for his release. He also sued the German government when they disallowed that ransom as a business deduction. (Note to Nell: Albrecht won.) He saved signage and printing costs by changing the company name from "Albrecht-Discount" to Aldi.

Secretive: Albrecht was "more reclusive than the Yeti," according to Forbes magazine. His most recent public comment was in 1971 when his kidnappers released him. His most recent authorized photo is also from 1971. The only known paparazzi photo of him is from 1993. His family waited until Albrecht was buried before telling the press that he had died.

Wealthy: Forbes estimates Theo Albrecht to have been #31 on their list of the rich and worth $16.7 billion. (Brother Karl is #10 with $23.5 billion.) Theo's kidnapper, a lawyer from Dusseldorf with gambling debts, thought he was worth $4.6 million in ransom, but Albrecht bargained him down to $2 million, only half of which was recovered when the lawyer was arrested.

Played well with Karl: After WWII, which the brothers spent fighting for the Wehrmacht, the Albrechts took over their mother's grocery store in Essen, Germany. Twelve years later, they had 300 stores throughout Germany. That year, Theo and Karl had a rare disagreement over the sale of cigarettes, and split their company into two: Aldi-Sud (no cigs) for Karl, and Aldi-Nord (cigs) for Theo. This agreement was later expanded to include the world, Karl taking Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and Theo taking Europe.

Theo, however, entered the U.S. market in 1979 by buying Trader Joe's, a chain also known for its frugal ways. The move did not seem to faze Karl, for the Albrecht brothers supposedly spent their retirement playing golf and collecting typewriters together. They may have spent their days throwing typewriters and cheating each other at golf but, given their secrecy, we'll never know. I am willing to bet they reinked their ribbons and kept score on old Aldi receipts.

— Wendy

He was 88. The ladies get 5 for the hit and three for the duet. Total: 8.

According to Chambers Dictionary, the definition of "snooker" is to thwart a person or plan by placing an obstacle in the way.

No sooner had the word turned up in the news — the NAACP said they had been "snookered" by Andrew Breitbart over the Sherrod fiasco — that the obituaries for Alex "Hurricane" Higgins started appearing, to remind us of the origin of the term. In the case of the NAACP, that was a diabolically edited videotape. In the case of Higgins, it was cigarettes, drugs, booze, women, gambling and who knows what other manner of self-destruction. The sport itself has never been fully (or even at all) appreciated in the U.S. but, in the UK, Higgins was a superstar. His rapid-fire breaks were as legendary as his appetites. He was what made the sport popular. He drove the TV ratings. His excesses were forgiven, or at least understood. He is the reason that everyone over there knows the sport and no one does here. Except for the odd NAACP functionary.

In 2004 (and I may have written about this before, so excuse me), we saw an Off-Off Broadway play about Higgins called, and you'll never guess, Hurricane, a one-man show written by and starring the Irish actor Richard Dormer. It was a wonderful depiction of Higgins' highs and lows. It was a sweaty affair. The set was a boxing ring. This was to underscore the battle he fought continuously on the world stage. Very exciting stuff, and this was an actor. I can only imagine what the real deal was like.

Alex Higgins has died at 61. DDT retakes the lead in a battle that Hurricane Higgins would certainly have appreciated. Eleven for the hit and five for the solo. Total: 16.

— Amelia

Charlene loved Maury Chaykin so much, she wrote two different updates. They were both good and both short, so I kind of combined them. Considering the point total, I doubt she will mind.

* * *

Maury Chaykin was a fantastic actor. He was everywhere in Canada — on TV, in the movies, on the stage. He evaded being typecast not because he was physically unremarkable; far from it. But Chaykin had the ability to step into any character with seeming effortlessness. Canadian directors loved what he brought to his craft so much that they didn't bother with hated auditions or casting calls. If Chaykin wanted a job, he had one, which isn't something even the biggest Hollywood actors can often say.

Chaykin made every character his own unique creation. Even character actors have a "type," but Chaykin didn't. Who else could have played mad Major Fambrough in Dances with Wolves, intimidating bastard Harvey Weingard in Entourage, and (my favourite) the sour, sharp Nero Wolfe in The Nero Wolfe Mysteries so successfully? Chaykin managed to create something new with the character while remaining uncommonly true to Stout's original work. One of his last appearances was on the HBO Canada TV show Less Than Kind, about a fat kid growing up in Winnipeg. It's quirky, intelligent and deadpan snarky, but Chaykin is the best part of it. He steals the show whenever he's on the screen.

But Maury Chaykin was an obese sexagenarian who looked like he might have been on high doses of steroids. The last episode of Less Than Kind broadcast in Canada was titled "Terminus ad Quem." Maury Chaykin met his own personal terminus ad quem on July 27, his 61st birthday, in Toronto. And Charlene, who suspected that an obese 61-year-old might not survive yet another broiling-hot Winnipeg summer shooting outdoor scenes, gets 11 points plus 5 points for a solo, and another 15 points because Chaykin ruined his own birthday party. Total: 31.

— Charlene

What did JD Baldwin think of Mitch Miller? Read any of the paragraphs below and you'll find out. Thanks, JD.

* * *

Even people who have no idea who Mitch Miller was will instantly recognize the "bouncing ball" moving across on-screen lyrics. Most of them would recognize the name of his television show: Sing Along with Mitch. That was just a truncated version of his personal motto: "Sing Along with Mitch ... or Mitch Will Fucking Destroy You."

I barely even have to write about Mitch Miller (but I'm gonna anyway) because Wikipedia has a quote from Will Friedwald that sums up the man's whole legacy:

Miller exemplified the worst in American pop. He first aroused the ire of intelligent listeners by trying to turn — and darn near succeeding in turning — great artists like Sinatra, Clooney, and Tony Bennett into hacks. Miller chose the worst songs and put together the worst backings imaginable — not with the hit-or-miss attitude that bad musicians traditionally used, but with insight, forethought, careful planning, and perverted brilliance.

"Perverted brilliance." I come not to disrespect Miller, but to praise him. My God, the man was a genius. An evil, monstrous, despicable, vile genius.

Oh, he had musical talent. He was a skilled conductor, both on the podium in public and in his deft handling of temperamental musicians in rehearsals and arrangements. I have personally heard him play the oboe, live, and he could have won a position in any symphony orchestra in the world — first chair in just about any of them. Charlie Parker is not normally someone considered to have a tin ear, and he gave Miller a job. (A favor Miller returned.)

Some of the classical recordings that, in my youth, turned me on to some of the greatest music ever were, either directly or indirectly, created by Miller. (After Miller went to the "pop" side of the business, Columbia's classical division went completely to hell. Except that they managed to hold onto Glenn Gould.)

When Miller went into the business side of the music business, he was such a brilliant producer that he soon became the chief Artists and Repertoire (A&R) executive, first at Mercury and then at Columbia. And he was competent at that, too — the way Stalin showed he was "competent" at mass layoffs. Miller ruled with an iron fist at Columbia, where he did tremendous good — as long as the artists who benefited were in accord with his personal views of what ought to be promoted, and submitted to him humbly. Frankie Laine, Johnny Mathis and Patti Page have all praised Miller lavishly in public, and to my knowledge none of them ever said a bad word about him even in private. Page once commented that her career would have been shorter, and poorer, without Miller's guidance and help.

For that last bit alone, we can forgive Miller his relentless and astonishingly successful promotion of Doris Day. Well, mostly. (By "astonishingly successful" I mean he managed to ensure this cloying, irritatingly sunny-voiced precursor to Karen Carpenter somehow actually had a musical career.)

And then came the rebels. The guys who dared buck Miller's stodgy, conservative style. Sinatra is the most famous and obvious case. As Friedwald notes, Miller very nearly succeeded in relegating Frank Sinatra — FRANK-FUCKING-SINATRA — to the third tier of artists of the age. And he didn't do it by merely suppressing him, he did it with insanely, diabolically brilliant stuff like this:

Frank Sinatra's Worst Song

You're welcome.

He openly bullied Rosemary Clooney into this atrocity against good taste and sense, telling her she was fired if she didn't go along. (See "Miller, Mitch, personal motto of" above.)

Rosemary Clooney's Worst Song

That crap (a hit, of course) almost defined her whole identity as an artist. If "Mambo Italiano" hadn't been a big success soon after that, well ... one doesn't like to dwell on the alternate history for too long.

You know the stereotype of the record-company weasel lying-sack-of-shit, backstabbing producer/executive? You know how stereotypes don't usually happen by accident? Mitch Miller was the prototype for all of them. But if you need evidence that he was a soulless vampire, look no further than the quote "busgal" posted:

Interviewed by Time magazine in 1951, Mr. Miller was less than enthusiastic about the kind of gimmicky pop records that had become his specialty. "I wouldn't buy that stuff for myself," he said. "There's no real artistic satisfaction in this job. I satisfy my musical ego elsewhere."

The hit parade: Brigid, Buford, Busgal, Dead Batteries, Fireball, Hulka, JohnnyB, Kathi, Mark, O'Wilners, Ray Arthur and Roxanne Wiggs all threw the bouncing ball right between the old vampire's eyes and got two points apiece for knocking him into Music Hell, where he can share an oar with Florence Foster Jenkins and keep a seat warm for that guy from Bread.

— JD Baldwin