I will be accepting lists all day in my timezone.

I will create a mailing list of all the entrants and all business concerning the pool will be conducted that way.

The scoring system will be the one created by JD Baldwin.

All picks so far have been vetted by me and a panel of esteemed judges.

You need to inform *me* if one of your picks leaves the building, with an appropriate obituary. (Except in the obvious cases. Please don't send me the Pope's obits)

When I go away on business or vacation, I will appoint a regular member of alt.obituaries to act as host in my absence.

All "hits" will be announced on AO, and there will be periodic updates on scoring.

There will be awards at the end of the year.

Highest score, most hits, fewest hits, that sort of thing. And a special award to the person or persons with no hits at all.

All decisions are final.

No returns or exchanges after today.

No purchase necessary.

While supplies last.

Contest Scoring (With thanks to JD Baldwin)

AGE AT DEATH	POINTS AWARDED
100+	1
90-99	2
80-89	5
70-79	8
60-69	11
50-59	14
40-49	18
30-39	20
20-29	22
< 20	25
Bonus points: You were the only one to pick that person: 5 pts. You were one of only two to pick that person: 3 pts. You were one of only three to pick that person: 1 pt.

«—SUMMARY—»

Died: January 3rd Age: 52 Worth: 19 ₧ Popularity: 3.03% of entrants Selector: Newt's Hoots

1. Jack Skate

Do you know where Papua New Guinea is? Let alone that its former Prime Minister was a good candidate for a dead pool? Newt's Hoots did. A new player with a remarkably stylish first hit for him and for us in the AO Deadpool second season.

(Could AO have the first hit of the deadpool season everywhere? I'm sure someone will tell me.)

A colorful character, to say the least, Sir William Skate once defended himself against corruption claims by saying "if I had to choose between my wife and my country I would choose my country" His other big quote, caught on tape, "If I tell my gang members to kill, they kill ... there's no other godfather. I'm the godfather." He didn't last long as PM of PNG.

Skate had heart problems and suffered a stroke on January 3, at the tender age of 52. Newt's Hoots gets 14 points for the hit and 5 points for the solo. 19 points total. Already a formidable lead.

Skipper Chuck has died. From 1957-1979 kids in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties got ready for school watching The Skipper Chuck Show weekday mornings on Miami's WTVJ-Channel 4. They adored him.

"Hi, everybody. How're you?" the Skipper sang. "Don't sit quiet, let's get moving. Have a finger-snapping, hand-clapping time!"

Enough of that. One of our rookie players, Acctorp, had to be one of the finger-snapping tykes. How else would he know that God needed a new Skipper? Chuck Zink died January 4. He was 80. Acctorp gets 5 points for the hit, and 5 points for the solo. Total: 10. This puts him in second place! (That was a joke.)

It's no great surprise that Lou Rawls died today at 72. But it is a damned shame. He had that wonderfully rich baritone voice. You always liked him when you heard him (disco, gospel, jazz, blues, Budweiser) and you probably never listened to him enough. Fortunately, that voice lives on.

19 players heard the bad news in 2005 and reluctantly, one would hope, put him on the list for 2006. Each gets 8 points. The first week of January isn't over, I haven't finished organizing the pool, I haven't written up the *last* pool, and look what we have already. Help!

Jack Snow had a knack for catching a football.

Unfortunately, he also had quite a knack for catching a staph infection. Snow, a star wide receiver for the Rams from 1965-75 and a longtime team broadcaster died yesterday at 62.

DGH, Raven and Yersinia Pestis had him on their lists. (Although on one of them, I actually transcribed it as Jack Frost!) They each get 11 points for the hit, and one more point for the trio. Total: 12

The old people have yet to feel the brunt of the winter so Louis isn't even on the board yet. Imagine that. (Look at those hits. Short and sweet. If Skate went by Bill, then all the names have one syllable each.)

He was a marketing genius who dreamed up a vodka and an ad campaign to go with it. And that's the reason I had Sid Frank on my list. (I've shortened his first name because that way we do not break the streak of having only people with one syllable names on the deadpool hit list.) If you watched as many Yankee games as I do, year after year, you'd know why I thought of Mr. Frank when compiling the list.

Grey Goose was one of the Yes Network and Yankee sponsors. Every goddamn inning, I had to listen to those obnoxious bartenders. Also, when he officially became a billionaire in the eyes of the magazine that recognizes such achievements, I learned that Mr. Frank was enormous, could no longer play golf and hired people to play for him. This, I thought, is a man who is fixing to die.

I get 5 points for the hit. 5 points for the solo. And I get on the board before Louis. Amazing.

With the death of the lovely, loud actress Shelley Winters, we have officially moved onto two-syllable names. In films, she was more likely to be murdered than married. She was unforgettable as a blonde bombshell. She was unforgettable as a fat swimmer. She loved food, she loved men and in my favorite of her films, she loved the movies. ("If you see Clark Gable," she tells her Hollywood-bound son in Next Stop Greenwich Village, "tell him I always loved him.") A little googling informs me that the line originated with her, not Mazursky, and was an homage to her own mother, who said that very thing when *she* left Brooklyn for Hollywood.

Shelley Winters died yesterday. She was either 83 or 85. 7 gamesters called the hit. Bill Schenley, Corby, Ed Varner, Erik, Laurie Mann and two with their first hits of the year, Denise & Wendy. They each get 5 points. And maybe, just maybe, we have our first stand-alone at the Oscars.

Here was a guy who was a Sorbonne-educated linguist. (Which probably means he was one of those guys who spoke 7 languages.) He was a professor of Albanian literature (quick: name an Albanian novelist) He symbolized peaceful resistance from the repression of madmen, and got the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

But he wasn't quite thoughtful enough to lay off the fucking cigarettes. So the chain-smoking president of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, is dead today, at 61, of lung cancer. Newt's Hoots, Raven and Acctorp go around the world to pick up the hit. (It's weird this year having so many professional deadpoolers. To think they're doing it for Moxie!)

That's 11 points for the hit. One point for the trio. 12 points total.

And we've moved on to three-syllable names.

His brother said he was a poet, talking with his hands and feet. Balanchine said it was ballet. The two danced and sang into the hearts of millions in vaudeville houses, in clubs of cotton, on stages from Hollywood to Broadway. He was the half remaining of the most beautiful tap-dance team in history. Both halves are gone now. Fayard Nicholas died yesterday at the age of 91. He was pretty much broke.

blogs.wbur.org/arts/?p=208

Rookie GS, who sent that link along, choreographed a solo but admitted to me that he hated to get his first hit on one of his favorite performers. GS gets 2 points for the hit, and 5 for the impressive solo.

Still, given who Fayard Nicholas was, it's kind of a shame it wasn't a duet.

Coretta Scott's first act in becoming Martin Luther King's wife was to remove from the marriage vows the one that said he must be obeyed. Clearly, she knew her own mind, but she also had the same dream he did. When he died, she simply continued his work. She was a hard-working advocate for everything that is good about people, or should be. She had her own ways of doing things, she had a much smaller voice, but her power was unmistakable. Coretta Scott King died today at 78. One can only hope that there are people out there to continue *her* work.

Surprisingly, given the press about her ill health, only two poolers had Coretta Scott King on their lists. I like to think that's because she was the kind of person that you can't imagine leaving us.

Yersinia Pestis and Lurker3791 each get 8 points for the hit and 3 for the duet. Total: 11

She went to the theater and didn't see people like her on the stage. So she set about righting that wrong. One play at a time. From Uncommon Women and Others to the Heidi Chronicles to The Sisters Rosenzweig and on. She wrote splendid parts for actresses like Glenn Close and Meryl Streep and Swoosie Kurtz. She was one of those NYC characters whose name was always in the papers and magazines, until it started being there for all the wrong reasons. Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein died today at the very young age of 55. "As far as I'm concerned, every New Yorker is born with the inalienable right to ride the D train, shout 'Hey, lady!' with indignation and grow up going regularly to the theater," she once wrote.

Of course I had the smart, witty Manhattan girl on my list. (My first non-solo.) But then, so did Newt's Hoots and Acctorp, our resident deadpool experts. We get 14 points for the hit. One point for the trio. A total of 15 points each.

Light dimming on Broadway marquees: Jan. 31 -- 8 pm sharp.

So how will you remember him? The Munsters? Car 54? Grandpa's Restaurant? The gubernatorial race? The cigar? Well this is the way the Jewish Telegraphic Agency sums up his life:

"Al Lewis, the son of Jewish immigrants who later became a TV legend and leftist politician, died last Friday at 95 in New York City. Lewis, who was raised by his mother, an immigrant sweatshop worker in Brooklyn, was best known for his role as Grandpa Munster on the TV show "The Munsters."

He also had a doctorate in child psychology and ran for governor of New York on the Green Party ticket in 1998. One mention of his education, one of his political leanings, one of his campaign for governor, one of The Munsters, and two mentions of his mother.

It's only right.

Four of our gamesters, two girls, two boys, liked their Grandpa. Charlene, Denise, Mark and King Daevid. We're accepting his age as falling somewhere between 80 and 89, which gives them each 5 points.

After a run of good guys, we finally get us a bad one. Friedrich Engel was one of those Nazis who lived long enough for the folks in charge to feel sorry for them and suspend their sentences. (The Stormfront White Nationalist Community agreed: "As usual, our western, jew guided Puppet regime wanted to show the world how "decent democratic" we all are today, and grabbed the old man who has to walk on crutches.")

Maybe he was responsible for the massacre of 59 Italians soldiers, maybe it was 246. Why quibble with numbers. Even though he was the head of the SS at the time in that part of the world, the Butcher of Genoa said he was just following orders.

Friedrich Engel died February 4 at the age of 97. Welcome Buford to the game! He got himself this nifty solo. That's two points for the hit, 5 for the solo. Total 7.

That leaves 7 gamesters still to score. Last year's winner leading the non-scoring pack.

Louis, where are you? 

She wrote a book that tore to shreds the established social fabric of the world, starting right here in the US. She helped found the National Organization of Women. She fought for reproductive choice. She was a tiny woman, but she never let anything or anyone stand in her way.

It's hard to imagine now that there was a time when women weren't expected to be as ambitious, as educated, as strong, as smart, as well-paid, as LOUD as men. I can remember. We should all remember the battles these brave feminists fought. The world is a better place for it.

Betty Friedan died Saturday on her birthday. She was 85. Johnnyb gets out of the 0-hit club with this classy solo. 5 points for the hit, 5 points for the solo. Total: 10. Welcome to the pool, Johnnyb.

Joe McGuff. With a name like that, you could either play baseball, or write about it. Joe McGuff wrote about it. He covered sports for the Kansas City Star for 38 years, eventually becoming the paper's editor. He wrote about the Olympics, he wrote about Super Bowls, but mostly he wrote about baseball. He was so good, he made it to the writers' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was a beloved figure in KC, and as the present-day editor said:

"I didn't grow up reading The Star. I grew up reading Joe McGuff."

Joe McGuff died Saturday, in a particularly cruel twist of fate, of Lou Gehrig's disease, at 79. Our Acctorp had his eye on first place, and first place he has to himself with this 13 point hit. (8 for the hit, 5 for the solo.) Our first doubly on-topic hit of the deadpool season.

Phil Brown had the usual mid-to-late 20th century actor's bio. A little Group Theater, a little Hollywood, a little Blacklisting, a little Banishment, a little role in a cult film, finishing with a whole lot of autograph parties. The lifelong progressive did what he had to do to earn a living and he made it work. Phil 'Uncle Lars' Brown died on February 9th at the age of 89.

Acctorp keeps rolling along. He's gotten off to an amazing, almost Louis-like start, and has a formidable lead. He scored 5 points for the hit and 5 points for the solo. Total: 10.

Can he keep this pace up? 

A really old lady died. The daughter of freed slaves, she had more birthday candles on her cake than just about anyone in the country. She was some god-awful age she probably didn't want to be. Her 96-year-old son can take comfort in knowing he no longer has to finish his lima beans.

Bettie Wilson died Monday in her third century. She was 115. Newt's Hoots and Louis Epstein correctly predicted her demise. They get one, count'em, one point for the hit and three for the daily double. Total: 4 points.

Which solidifies Newt's second and brings Louis into the game. In the exact opposite position he left it last year.

115 and she was still shopping at Victoria's Secret. Imagine. 

Susie Gibson blamed dill pickles for her longevity. 115 or 116 years. Her minister would bring them to her in 5 gallon jars, which she took special care with. I don't really want to know what that means. And 115 years of visits from the minister bringing pickles can make it awful hard to write something interesting. In addition, her son won't be able to start acting out now that his momma is dead, because he's dead already.

Susie Gibson joined him on Thursday. Only Newt's Hoots had her (which means Louis is going to tell me there's some problem or other) so Mr. Hoots gets 1 measly point for the hit and a solid 5 points for the solo.

Nice work, Newt. Welcome to the 6-hit club. 

Laurel Hester was a brave woman. Not just because she was a cop. (Wow, didn't that sound like the intro to a really bad obit?), but because she was a gay cop. And because she stood her ground against pointy-headed bureaucrats, who wanted her to give up her right to name her domestic partner her beneficiary for her lousy $13,000 life insurance policy. And just in the nick of time.

Laurel Hester died Saturday at 49 of lung cancer. She is survived by her partner, Stacie Andree.

Well, isn't Newt's Hoots making a run for the Moxie. With this stunning hit — in fact the last three hits have been his — he moves into first. Sharing the honors with him is Yersinia Pestis, who moves into third. They get 18 points for the hit and 3 points for the duet. 21 points total.

I believe six of you have yet to score. 3 boys, 3 girls. But it's only February. The year is young. 

There it is in the first sentence of the NY Times obit. "His voice defined big-game network television sportscasting." I read Curt Gowdy had died and I immediately heard his voice. If you watched any sports in those days, you knew it. He called 7 Super Bowls, 10 World Series, 24 NCAA championship games, and 7 Olympics, to name a few. He called the "Heidi" game. He called Ted Williams' last at bat. He learned how to call baseball from a Yankee announcer and went to the enemy to ply his trade. And for twenty years, he hunted and fished for the cameras in a deadly boring show called The American Sportsman.

One thing is sure. He got Kentucky Wizard out of the no-scoring zone. He and Louisiana Lou called this hit together. Gowdy was 86. So they each get 5 points for the hit and three for the duet.

Welcome to the pool, KW! 

Octavia Butler won the Hugo, the Nebula and a MacArthur genius grant. She was the most famous woman science fiction writer who also happened to be black. She was determined to write about big themes, to fight social injustice and war and poverty through the force of her words, and since so many of her books are taught in high schools and colleges, her determination seems to have paid off. I'm looking forward to reading one of her novels but I already admire her for being a non-driver.

In one day, Brigid went from doing absolutley nothing in the AO Deadpool to rising to the top five. (Grrrr.) I thought maybe we would have to give her a special bonus for getting two hits in one day, but Ms. Butler died on Friday, so her hits were actually on consecutive days. Still, mighty impressive. Octavia Butler was 58. Brigid gets 14 points for the hit, and 5 for the solo. Total: 19 points.

Nice work, B.

Don Knotts. I think you had to be a guy to appreciate him.

He was so freakin' goofy. Still, he had a way about him.

Whether he did sketch comedy for Steverino, stole the show from Andy Griffith, took over Norman Fell's landlord duties, or provided inspiration for Martin Short, Knotts had a prominent place in the average boomer's brain. Jim Carrey said it best:

"I went to him, and I was just like, 'Thank you so much for "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,"' 'I watched it a hundred times when I was a kid.' "

Well, I don't know about best. But he said it.

Don Knotts died of lung cancer Friday night. He was 81.

Corby, Ed Varner, Louisiana Lou and Raven were all tied up in Knotts. See? All guys..

Darren McGavin did things with hats that no one else did.

www.darrenmcgavin.net/desktop/darren25.jpg
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www.darrenmcgavin.net/desktop/Darren129.jpg
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He was jaunty. How many actors can you think of who are truly jaunty?

He was someone you always knew would bring a mediocre TV movie to life. He could be tough-talking or funny, campy or sexy. He played Eisenhower, Mike Hammer, and Murphy Brown's dad. He had unbelievable range. Everyone loved Darren McGavin.

Brigid loved Darren McGavin and she got her first hit of the season with the actor, who died yesterday at 83. She shares the honors with Philip, scoring his second hit. They get 5 for the hit and three for the double. Total: 8 Welcome to the pool, Brigid!

Because no good deed goes unpunished, Dana Reeve died yesterday at the absurdly young age of 44. She gave up her career as a singer and an actress to help her husband when he needed her most. She told him she'd be with him for the long haul, and she was. She probably told her son something like that, too, but that was not to be. As an actress, she had the usual Law & Order credits. And she did an "Oz:" episode called Obituaries, you'd probably be interested to know, and enough cabaret that I saw her a whole bunch of years ago in a benefit concert. Nice voice. She had planned to pick up her career where she had left it, but life intervened.

Ed Varner, Philip and Raven all made the prediction. 18 points for the hit, 1 for the trifecta. Total: 19. Needless to say, this high-scorer moved each one of them up in the standings.

Dana Reeve dies of lung cancer at 44, without taking a puff. There's Gordon Parks, in a 1966 photo, sucking on a cigarette, 40 years away from dying. Go figure. Well, at least they both lived in interesting times.

Gordon Parks did it all, and most of it quite well. He took splendid photos (for the FSA and Life) of the poor and the rich and the zeitgeist of whatever time he was living in. He wrote books that inspired generations, made movies that people are still singing the praises of (I'm talking about Shaft). He composed symphonies, sonatas, concertos and ballets. He picked up a camera "because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty."

He lived a full life in and out of the darkroom. Gordon Parks died today at 93. It's Johnnyb who gets a lovely little solo on him. Two points for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 7. That's two solos in a row for Johnny.

Well, the evil ones aren't leaving the world at quite the pace we'd like them to. But we'll take what we can get.

Slobodan Milosevic is dead. So he's no longer alleged to have done anything. He did it all. War crimes. Crimes against humanity. Genocide. He probably even tore the labels off pillows. With 200,000 dead on his watch, give or take a few poor souls, he gets, as the NY Times likes to call it, the "sobriquet," Butcher of the Balkans. He should burn in hell alongside the Butcher of Lyons.

Milosevic died of natural causes (right) Friday. He was 64.

???Guest comes out of the shadows of the AO Deadpool with a high-scoring solo that puts him or her in the highest place in the standings of anyone who has one hit. (Did that make sense?) 11 points for the hit, 5 for the solo. Total: 16. Welcome to the deadpool, ??? Guest! May you hit again real soon. Real soon.

When Ken Brewer, Utah's Poet Laureate, learned he had a cancer that wasn't going away without taking him along, he decided not only not to hide his illness, but to share it with the public. In email, in interviews and in his life's work, poetry. The cancer had changed everything about everything in his life, and he called it a gift. Ken Brewer died of pancreatic cancer last week at the age of 64.

Listen to him. He was a great teacher.

www.utahpublicradio.org/audioarchive.html

Acctorp is making a sneak attack towards first and he's almost made it. He gets 11 points for his seventh hit and 5 for the solo for a whopping 16 points. A cool fellow, he waited a week to point out to me that he had gotten the hit. And I'm pretty sure that Brewer would have found being in a deadpool list a very interesting thing.

"I measure my life in cancer that has taught me how to measure my life."

"Hurry, hurry, Oleg, I've got nothing to wear," cried Jackie Kennedy, and we can assume Gene Tierney, Grace Kelly, and all the other clotheshorses Cassini squired about, bedded down, even married. He was never considered an important designer because important designers didn't go stepping out with actresses every night. Important designers didn't go on the Tonight Show in those days. Or franchise their clothing lines. Or take the clothes to the people instead of the runway. But when you think about a lot of the clothes of the 60's, you're thinking about a lot of the clothes that he created. The Nehru jacket, the pillbox hat, the shirt dress and all those classy Jackie gowns. So let us say it here for all of usenet to read. Oleg Cassini was a very important designer. And he wasn't even gay. Go know.

Cassini died yesterday at the age of 92. Charlene, GS, and Laurie Mann had him on their lists.. 2 for the hit, one for the trifecta, for a total of three lousy points. Still, a nice classy hit.

The original Eyewitness newsman. The guy who sat next to the guy who inspired Chevy Chase on SNL. The first anchor of what would become Good Morning America. (Shouldn't there be a comma before America?) Bill Beutel even had a secure place at the IMDb. He played, get this, a news anchor in 4 different films, three of them as himself! For more than 30 years, he delivered the news to me and Brad and Dannyb and Erik and all the other tri-staters. He and Roger Grimsby made happy talk and they made the news real. Or fake. I'm not sure which. Bill Beutel died yesterday at the age of 75. (Grimsby died in 1995.)

What a perfect turn of events that Dannyb should leave the house of zero hits to score on this NYC media icon. Today he's in the game with an 8 point-hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 13.

Welcome to the pool, Dannyb!

And I know just how Bill Beutel would want me to end this update.

"Good luck and be well." (Sometimes you gotta go with the obvious.)

(Editors note: Because I knew he would jump at the chance, I gave Bill Schenley the job of writing up this hit. This is partly because I had CW on my list last year but took him off this year -- who knows why -- and the wound is still too fresh for me.)

Caspar Weinberger, an American inventor, has died.

Yes, an American inventor. He invented, among other things, such useful household objects as the $30 bolt, the $600 toilet seat and the always appreciated $3,000 ashtray. Apparently, as a hobby, Weinberger was somewhat of a magician, in that he created a trillion dollar illusion.

And let us not forget that he was also a financial wizard.

He dedicated his life to *public service*, yet somehow ended up worth millions and millions and *millions* of dollars (How do 'dat happen?)

Speaking of wizards ... the Kentucky Wizard had Caspar as a solo. He was worth 5 points for the hit and 5 points for the solo for a total of 10 points. Good thing for the rest of us in the deadpool that Mr. Weinberger is dead ... Otherwise he would have surely awarded Kentucky Wizard 40,000 points ... but only if KW gave a black bag full of them back to 'Cap the Knife.'

If there were any justice, Caspar would be buried in a 50 gallon Hefty ...

You know, as a cost cutting measure ...

And please, *pardon* my glee ...

Ali Akbar Sanati was Iran's most distinguished artist and sculptor, leaving the world more than 1400 paintings and sculptures. He also set up a number of well-known museums in Teheran. During the US-backed military coup to topple the nationalist government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953, his museum was ransacked by rioters and some of his sculptures were destroyed. It took two years for Sanati to repair his museum and sculptures. In 2005, President Mohammad Khatami awarded Ali Akbar Sanati an emblem of merit for 60 years of service to the art sector.

Look! images.google.com/images?sourceid=...

Ali Akbar Sanati died in April at 89. I missed it. Bill missed it. And pretty much the whole rest of the world missed it. Not Acctorp, who had the talent Sanati on his list. But he does seem to have been Iran's most famous artist, so I'm going to accept the hit, even without an obit outside of Iran. 5 points for the hit, 5 for the solo. Total: 10

Politics makes strange bedfellows. So, it would appear, does death. Because there's the Rev. William Sloane Coffin shuffling off right after Cap Weinberger in our deadpool. I had been wondering why there had been such a lag. Now I know. William Sloane Coffin was unabashedly liberal. A longtime Yale chaplain and social activist, he devoted his entire life (including three years in the CIA) to the seemingly endless battles to be fought for justice and freedom. He was our conscience. He was not cynical.

"Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race," he declared, adding: "Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our country, but pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports - one planet indivisible, with clean air, soil and water; with liberty, justice and peace for all."

Coffin died April 12 at 81.

Newt's Hoots, our leader, had Coffin to go this year. That's 5 points for the hit, his pool-leading eighth, and 5 for the solo. Ten, in total. Notice I've gone out of my way not to make a stupid pun about his name.

Jean Bernard was a world-famous hematologist. In fact, he pretty much invented the field of hematology.

Active in the French resistance (weren't they all) and imprisoned by the Nazis, Bernard eventually became director of a research institute dedicated to leukemia and blood diseases and was a member of the French Academy. At least two diseases were named for him. How many diseases have you had named for you? Please don't attempt to answer that.

Jean Bernard died April 17.

Jean Bernard was 98 years old, which made him Louis material. Thanks in part to Louis' mother's Ph.D in French, Louis does, indeed, get the hit. Two points and five for the solo. Total: 7. Louis is struggling this year, but this hit propels him out of last place. Which is still a better place than the one two of our gamesters are currently sitting in.

Bloody good hit, LE.

"Ok here's my contrarian two cents. First of all, let's not forget this is broadcast internationally. They *have* to put in a couple of international names. Oddly, there weren't any huge international directors or stars who died, but they have to have foreign names on the list."

Hyfler/Rosner: 2003

Most famous for her star turn in The Third Man, she went back and forth from Italy to the United States in her cinematic travels. She worked with the best: Reed, Hitchcock, Visconti, Bertolucci, Chabrol, Antonioni. And she never stopped, except to refuse to do fascist propaganda. Alida Valli, who was not to the "next Garbo," but who was one of Italian cinema's most beloved actresses, died today at 84. Last year I hit with an Italian cinematographer. This year, I move in front of the camera. Alida Valli was on my list. I get five for the hit, and five for the solo. Giving me a total of ten.

She was the Mother of Television. Which doesn't sound quite so catchy as the Father of Television, the role her husband Philo played. But there she was, standing next to him in the labs, making sketches of his inventions, keeping his journals, building equipment, even appearing in the first human images transmitted.

And when the big boys tried to take the credit, she fought back. Long after Philo Farnsworth died, his wife was singing his praises and still, historians overlooked her role in TV's development. And now obituaries are doing the same thing. In fact, they're overlooking *her*. I could only find one obit of significance, but fortunately for Buford, it was an AP obit, which is perfectly acceptable for the AO Deadpool. Even though it says, Widow of TV Pioneer, and not TV Pioneer.

Elma Gardner Farnsworth, who stood by her man, died last week at 98. Two points for the hit and five for the solo, a remarkable achievement which takes Buford from the bottom of the pool to somewhere in the middle. Nice one, Buf.

There was a time when we had brilliant academics, not incompetent cronies, as ambassadors to major countries.

A time no more.

A half century ago John Kenneth Galbraith gave us "American Capitalism" and "The Affluent Society." Two books that would change the way people thought but, sadly, not the way they act.

On his writing, Galbraith said he took great pleasure in the idea that it might annoy those in a "comfortably pretentious position." Until he realized those in such a position "rarely read."

And that's too bad. In his 1958 book, "Affluent Society," he warned of environmental disaster, of an American class that would drown itself in its own possessions while the masses, that other class, would drown in poverty.

2006 meet 1958.

John Kenneth Galbraith died this weekend at 98. Denise, Kentucky Wizard, Louis and Yersinia Pestis had him on their deadpools. They each get two, count 'em, two points. They don't make much in the way of headway. But such is the name of the game.

People Magazine called Louis Rukeyser the only sex symbol in the dismal science of economics. If Rukeyser was its only sex symbol, then economics is more dismal than anyone thought.

For over thirty years, Louis Rukeyser gave sound economic and financial advice to millions of television viewers. People who trusted the judgment of a TV star over their stockbrokers. (Ok, so that's not so hard to believe) There have been many imitators over the years, but Louis and Wall $treet Week were first out of the gate. No more bad hair days for Mr. Rukeyser. He died, at 73, on May 2nd.

Three people, not one of whom I'll bet has a pot to piss in, Erik, Johnnyb and Raven, hit for the trifecta on the moneyman. That's 8 points for the hit, and one for the company they keep. Total: 9

And since his show was filled with puns, this update will not be. Rest in pesos, LR.

When the lists came in last December, to my surprise, there was Earl Woods, and I cringed. Was I going to have to start negotiating over parents, spouses and siblings of the famous? I decided to let him ride (I'm particularly liberal, as most of you know.) but then I was in for a different surprise when Woods died. He had obituaries in all four English newspapers and in all the important US media. This guy was larger than life. Everyone knew it, it seems, but me. Well, live and learn, I always say.

Or die and learn, to be precise.

Earl Woods, fairway father (nice one, Wash. Post), motivational speaker, Green Beret and memoirist, died May 3. He was 74.

Ed Varner, lately having trouble getting his wrestlers to play dead, got his solo on a golf daddy. That's 8 for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 13 He doesn't change places with anyone but he gets further away from me and the rest of the pack. Ed's having a very good year.

Damu Smith was the founder of Black Voices for Peace. When I looked at a bunch of his speeches, they didn't exactly sound peaceful. (No fan of Israel was Mr. Smith.) But his heart was in the right place. And he inspired many, many people to fight injustice, racism and all those other bad things that always happen around poor people. He was a tireless activist and was one of the first to link the civil rights and environmental movements, fighting chemical pollution in Louisiana, which was increasing the cancer rates of black people on the Gulf Coast. And no, Damu wasn't his real name. He changed it from LeRoy, a smart move, to the Swahili name that means blood, leadership and strength.

Damu Smith died May 5th of colon cancer. He was 54. Raven, which means bird, I think, gets himself a very, very impressive solo with his seventh hit. 14 points for the hit. 5 for the solo. Total: 19. Raven goes into a tie for second with Acctorp. Those guys at the top really know how to make this game a nailbiter.

Imagine you're five years old. You're on a sinking ship, watching your father and three of your brothers, including your twin, drown. Think you'd want to remember that? For another 95 years? Lillian Asplund did but she had no choice, I guess, as the oldest living Titanic survivor who was actually old enough to put memories together. There are 38 million hits on Google for Titanic. Think she was ever going to forget?

Lillian Asplund died yesterday at 99. Peacefully. It's a memorable day on the AO Deadpool, however. One of our two players in no-hit land has come aboard. Kathi finally gets a hit! She joins Charlene and the two of them get 5 points each! That's 2 for the hit, 3 for the duet. Welcome to the pool, Kathi! (Poor Wendy. The alphabet is not her friend.)

There's a contingent of Hollywood/Palm Springs film Brits, among whom Val Guest could well have been the oldest.

Guest wrote, directed, and produced. He made film after film after film. Some were pretty great, some were pretty awful. He wrote some of Will Hay's best comedies, directed a slew of taut psychological thrillers, achieved real fame with the Qatermass films and The Day The Earth Caught Fire, (Guest, himself a former journalist, hired Arthur Christiansen, a Fleet Street legend to play the editor of The Daily Express) He even made a sci-fi musical. And yet, everyone knows him for being one of the many wasted talents on Casino Royale. It doesn't seem quite fair. Because when he was good, he was very, very good.

A noted British film historian I know offered the following on Val Guest. "I do remember him as affable, very approachable and I hate to say it, much more intelligent than many of his films. But that's the British film industry for you. To be fair TDTECF is actually rather good, and if Spielberg had made it would have cost the equivalent of $150m. Val did it on peanuts."

Val Guest died May 10. He was 94.

This is the day Bill Schenley caught fire. With a very stylish deadpool pick. (We have another player with a couple of the other aged Hollywood Brits who's kicking himself today. I just know it.)

Bill gets 2 points for the hit, 5 for the solo. Which propels him into a tie for 10th with Kentucky Wizard.

Stanley Kunitz died on the day the bad poems appear in greeting cards, but he was quite devoted to his mother, so I guess that's all right. Over the course of his long and productive life, he was the state poet of New York, United States Poet Laureate, and poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. He was awarded a Guggenheim, a Ford Foundation grant, a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award and the National Medal of the Arts. But he wasn't allowed to be a conscientious objector. Stanley Kunitz lived a hundred years, writing his poems, showing others how to do the same, and tending his garden. He left us many, many blessings, as he called his poems. This is the how The Long Boat ends.

. Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn't matter
which way was home;
as if he didn't know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.

Stanley Kunitz couldn't stay forever. He died May 14 at 100. Louis, Ray Arthur and Yersinia Pestis got the 40th hit of the 2006 deadpool. That's ONE point for the hit, and ONE point for the trifecta. That's ONE point more than the worst you can score in this game. Hey, it counts. Nice work, boys.

Cy Feuer was really Feuer and Martin. And Feuer and Martin were really Where's Charley, Can-Can, The Boy-Friend, Silk Stockings, Cabaret, Guys and Dolls, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Little Me, the film of Cabaret....I could go on, but you get the idea. So maybe you never got as far as the producers in the Playbill Who's Who in the Cast. Nevertheless, Feuer (and Martin) were Broadway producing legends, and in 2003, Feuer received a Lifetime Achievement Tony. Martin died in 1995.

Just a week ago, I posted an Independent obit for Jay Presson Allen who wrote the screenplay for the movie version of Cabaret, which Feuer produced.

"For the 1972 screen version of the hit Broadway musical Cabaret, Allen deviated considerably from the libretto Joe Masteroff had provided for the stage: I was approached by the producer, Cy Feuer, who said, "We do not want to do the book of the musical. We want to go back to Isherwood's book [Goodbye to Berlin] and start all over again." On stage, the tutor hero had not been homosexual, and there had been a prominent romance between his landlady and a Jewish shopkeeper, which was jettisoned (along with the couple's songs) for the film."

Our fearless leader, Newt's Hoots and GS have scored the hit on Cy Feuer, who died today at 95. They get 2 points for the hit, and three for the duet. Total: 5. Very nice hit, gentleman. Take a bow.

Newt's Hoots is our first player in triple digits. Whoo-hoo.

Lloyd Bentsen, Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary for the first two years of his administration, was also a former congressman and senator from Texas and Michael Dukakis' running mate in the 1988 presidential race. "Loophole Lloyd," so labeled for his ability to draft legislation that gave tax benefits to the oil and gas industries, was 1-1 against Bush The Elder, losing in '88 as the vice-presidential candidate, but beating Bush in 1970 in a Texas congressional race after ousting the liberal Ralph Yarborough in 1968.

Had Lloyd Bentsen been ten or fifteen years younger, he might have been President of the United States. A Texas politician owned and operated by the oil industry! Imagine that! As it is, Lloyd Bentsen is famous for beating Dan "I stand by all the misstatements that I've made" Quayle in a war of wits.

It was a cheap shot. It probably wasn't terribly accurate. And it didn't work.

So, to Lloyd Bentsen, we at AO say, Senator, we know living people. Living people are friends of ours. Senator, you're no living person.

An eventuality predicted by Louisiana Lou, who weighs in with this delicious solo on Lloyd Bentsen, who died May 23 at 85. Lou gets 5 for the hit and 5 for the solo, for a total of 10. That was so called-for, Lou.

(Thanks to B. Schenley for help with this update.)

Tenta was a fake bad guy. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was the real deal. He was so bad, he apparently wasn't even that good at what he did. We all know about his issues with guns. He seemed to have a serious weight problem. And a BBC analyst pointed out that even Al Qaeda thought he was an inferior terrorist, and that the beheadings were just plain bad publicity. I'll say. I was in London during the Ken Bigley nightmare. Hideous stuff. So when the chance came up to blow him up real good, we took it. Bush said he wanted these guys dead or alive. But I'm betting they aren't offered much of a choice. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in an airstrike yesterday to the delight of a great deal of the world. He would have been 40 in October. Which means he was 39. And worth 20 big ones. It's the least a bad guy can do.

We have a totally different group of poolers for this satisfyingly high-scoring hit. Dannyb, Erik, Kathi, King Daevid, Lurker3791, and Wendy team up to go in for the kill. Dizzying changes in position. Most important, Kathi and Wendy move up out of their tie for last place.

So I said to the guys in the office, guess who died. (They're used to me doing this, as you can imagine.) Who's John Tenta, they all respond. A wrestler? Blank stares. Earthquake? Shrugs. But they all said the same thing. Todd will know. Tell Todd. In each office, there's a Todd.

The guy who spent the weekends of childhood watching the feuds and the fakes and loving, no, obsessing over, every blasted moment. Todd knew who Tenta was. He knew he had died, too. Couldn't scoop him. And he told me a really cool story about Earthquake and a snake and a guy named Roberts. It was like he was 9, the way he told the story. Someone walked by and said, wow, you and Todd have something in common. Obituaries and wrestling. Every once in a while, they bring people together.

John Tenta left the ring yesterday for the last time. He was 42. Ed Varner finally got himself a dead wrestler, but he wasn't alone. Corby, Johnnyb, Newt's Hoots, Raven, and Yersinia Pestis were all part of the federation of pool pickers. And boy did they get points. 18 of them. Way to go, boys.

Charles Haughey was the Taoiseach of Ireland a whole bunch of times. (What, you didn't know how to say Prime Minister in, I guess, Gaelic? Shame on you.). They're still looking for money gone missing under his watch. The scandals were many, yet he returned to office several times. Can you imagine such a thing? Anyway, I could go on and on, but then I'd actually have to read one of the I'm sure fine obituaries written on this man. I will say that in an excellent presentation (Las Vegas, NM) made by the man who is in charge of such things at the BBC, I learned that the powers that be at the BBC didn't want to do a whole TV obit for Haughey. Well, harrumph, he may not be good enough for the BBC, but he's good enough for the AO deadpool.

The scary Newt's Hoots keeps rolling on with hit after hit after hit. Nearly one-third of his picks are gone. He gets 5 points for the hit, 5 points for the solo. Total: 10. I speak for the group in requesting that you slow down a bit for the rest of us to catch up. (Thank you for being patient, Newt)

Vincent Sherman AKA Abraham Orovitz. An uneven director of Hollywood's Golden Age, he is at least as well known for his shtupping savvy as for his directorial prowess. I can't help thinking that there must have been a lot of that stuff going on at the time, but I guess you had to write a book to get credit. I did notice that the book he wrote about his adventures in the dressing rooms was published after the shtuppees had all died, and this makes me question his integrity. But his wife doesn't seem to have minded, so who am I to say. Nevertheless, I doubt he's shtupping them now. Vincent Sherman would have been 100 this year, but he died this week.

This is a an important milestone in the 2006 AO Deadpool. Our Fireball has scored! The very last player to score, in fact. And before the 6-month mark, too, when it is my duty to tell the internet universe the names of those who have yet to join the standings. The hit wasn't his alone. Louis and Ray Arthur join him. (99, Louis? So young.) That's 2 points for the hit, one for the triple. Total: 3

We welcome The Fireball to the pool! May you burn brightly for the rest of the year. In the meantime, you have Wendy's former seat.

He knew what the people wanted. So he gave it to them, year after year after year. Wherever you landed on the baby-boom or the gen x continuum, there was a show you watched religiously. Or two, or ten. It would be very easy to call him the ultimate shlockmeister and leave it at that, but there was critical success, as well. His name was associated with the brilliant California Split. TV fare like Family, with that wonderful cast, many of whom never did anything as good. And the Band Played On. Night, Mother. Soapdish. Good stuff. Quality stuff. Ultimately, he was responsible for and leaves as his legacy, an image of America that is, as we all know too well, a fantasy, yet accepted as real by the rest of the world. If he wasn't always original, he certainly knew how to present TV fare in its most accessible form.

Aaron Spelling, still going strong on TV, nevertheless died this week at 83. We have a nice duet by Charlene and King Daevid. 5 points for the hit, 3 for hitting as a team. Total: 8

(Update courtesy of our resident true-crime fan, Bill Schenley:)

They say the worst heartache a parent can suffer is the death of their child ... unless, of course, the parent is the one who brings about that death in a jealous rage. Was mom jealous of her daughter's beauty? Was she jealous because her husband was more attracted to their daughter's youthful innocence than he was to his wife's fading allure?

Patsy Ramsey, the one-time West Virginia beauty pageant winner is often mentioned as the number one suspect in the death of her daughter, JonBenét, who was found dead in the basement of her home, almost ten years ago.

Possibly sexually abused, JonBenét had been strangled and suffered from blunt-force trauma to her head.

Is that what Mrs. Ramsey did? Maybe we'll never know.

What we do know is that Mark, Acctorp, Buford and Corby have transferred whatever grief and outrage they once had over the death of a six-year-old beauty queen into 18 points on the AO Deadpool because mom has checked into, what just might be, a lower-level suite.

So a man walks into a room. He's a borscht belt tummler. The rabbi always gets the punchline. He's a master of ceremonies. Gameshows and seders and Morey Amsterdam's funeral. He raises money for Jews, the ultimate anti-anti-Semitic gesture. My childhood is marked by appearances on TV by people like Jan Murray. I don't remember a single joke he told or an episode of Treasure Hunt or any of the other gameshows, but I just know they were really stupid, which made them really great. And he had impeccable timing, as so many of them did. I thought it was interesting that he quit show business when he got asthma. It wasn't that he was too sick, it just fucked up his timing. Jan Murray died this week at 89. May he find Milton Berle and Buddy Hackett right away.

Thanks, Corby, for playing our game. Now it's time to win some money. No wait, there is no money! But you will go home with some lovely points. 5 for the hit, 5 for the solo for a total of ten. But wait, there's more! The play-at-home version of the official alt.obituaries deadpool game!

If I know nothing about snooker, you can only imagine how little I know about Dutch comedy. (If it's anything like Belgian comedy, I doubt its very existence. And Rudi Carrell spent most of his career in Germany, another hotbed of humor.) Nevertheless, he was the most famous Dutch/German TV comedian. And since Brad Ferguson posted a wonderful story about Carrell, I repost it for those who might have missed it.

"Christmas Eve, 1973. For some reason I'm in a Holiday Inn in Bruges, Belgium. It's the first time I haven't been home for Christmas, it's not quite snowing, the company I'm with sucks, and all in all, the evening is like spending the holiday in a lung ward. I put on the TV, which has all sorts of stuff on it in Belgian and German. Eurovision has a Rudi Carrell special. I'd never heard of Rudi Carrell, but there's fuck-all else on, so I watch. Everything's in German. I don't know any German except what you hear in war movies. Nevertheless, Carrell turned out to be so good at patter and sketch comedy that language didn't matter. For instance, there's a sketch where he's meeting a blind date at her apartment, and neither one wants the other to know that s/he wears thick-lensed glasses. They both squint and stumble around, bumping into things, trying to explain their clumsiness to each other as anything but being nearly legally blind. At one point, Carrell bumps into the lady's aquarium. He stares at it for a moment. Ah, he finally says. Color television! Carrell ended the special by singing some holiday songs I'd never heard and finished with White Christmas. In English. It turned out to be an okay night. Thanks, Rudi."

The amazing Acctorp has taken over the lead (in an alphabetical sort of way) with his last two hits, the snooker guy and the funny guy. For Rudi Carrell, who was 71, he gets 8 points for the hit and 5 for the solo. That's another 13 points and a first place tie on one fewer hit. Amazing playing, there, Acctorp.

Everyone loved June Allyson. That is a fact. It's indisputable. She was # one box office when you didn't have to mishandle your children or take up kabbalah to get there. All you had to do was be a brave and determined helpmeet with a sensible hairdo. Ok, you needed a sexy voice, too.

I loved June Allyson, especially when she was Jimmy Stewart's wife. (Don't go, Glenn! I have a bad feeling! I can hear Little Brown Jug!) And today I learn she was born in the Bronx and maybe even Jewish. She lived a nice long time, long enough for everyone except gay people (I'm told it's in the dna) not to know who she was outside of being a spokesperson for the last taboo. But through the miracle of DVD, you can all catch up. I recommend Strategic Air Command, The Glenn Miller Story, and The Stratton Story.

June Allyson died this week at 89 and became the AO Deadpool's 50th hit. Three people score. Bill Schenley, who knows what a good wife is -- he's had enough of them -- Kathi and Scubama. They get 5 points for the hit and one point for the trio. Total: 6.

When he wasn't a doctor, he was a priest. When he wasn't a priest, he was a judge. When he wasn't a plain old judge, he was a supreme court justice. Barnard Hughes was Da to some, Grandpa to others and always, always, from his first father figure to his last, a splendid actor. Critics loved him because they could pull out all the adjectives: cantankerous, sentimental, curmudgeonly, affable, warm-hearted. He won an Emmy, a Tony, and the hearts of soap, sitcom and stage fans the world over. Barnard Hughes lived to 90, and died this week.

Ray Arthur has made a little specialty of TV people. He gets the solo for Hughes. That's two points for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 7. Nice one, Treg. But stand by ....

It's worth noting that in the UK, snooker is a widely-watched TV sport and snooker champions are celebrities. In fact, snooker players are like rock stars. They make gossip pages there by damaging hotel rooms and drinking excessively. I know exactly nothing about snooker, yet even I have recently seen a one-man show about just such a snooker player named Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, who became the youngest ever world champion by beating John Spencer in 1972. John Spencer was a different kind of snooker celebrity. Gentleman John, as he was called, dominated the game during those years. He won three world titles, beginning in 1969. He was one of the first players to perfect the 'deep screw' shot (I don't want to know) and to use a two-piece cue. Then a wicked disease made him see double and even though he won a few more titles, he just wasn't the same old snooker champ. But then he did some snooker analysis for the BBC, and there was the stint on West Wing....

John Spencer died yesterday at 71. Acctorp obviously knew a lot more about snooker than I do, enough to pick him for the AO Deadpool. He gets 8 points for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 13. He remains in second place, but stand by....

Red Buttons didn't become a judge. And he didn't go to the electric chair. Where he went was to the Catskills, where he made people roar with laughter and, legend has it, put real milk in their coffee for 25 cents a squirt.

You may also remember Red Buttons for his salaried association with one of God's many waiting rooms in Florida, Century Village. He was such a good salesman, you somehow thought he was living there, too, and would play canasta with you in the clubhouse after you moved in. Buttons was an interesting talent and his career was anything but conventional. Just when you thought it would be limited to the nightclub circuit and the odd roast for a fellow tummler, he pops up in bizarre movie roles and wins awards for all kinds of nuanced performances. An Oscar, yet.

Red Buttons died this week at 87, never knowing who won the next election. The big news is that Ray Arthur makes it two in a row! (He had Barnard Hughes.) This time, he's joined by Scubama who makes it two almost in a row. (She had June Allyson.) They each get 5 for the hit and 3 for the duet. Total: 8

For a young baseball coach, Keith LeClair accomplished an awful lot. He was part of 13 NCAA tournament teams as a player and coach, and as a player, he set single-season Western Carolina records for hits and total bases. As a coach with Eastern Carolina, he set all kinds of other records. (Thank the lord there are not Northern and Southern Carolina teams, or I'd be here all night, writing this up.). There are so many numbers and stories surrounding this legend of college ball, I couldn't begin to list them all. He was the kind of coach you remember at all stages of your life. He inspired others to take up coaching, too. He gave out bibles like they were candy. He was perfect in every way, except one.

Keith LeClair died the way Lou Gehrig did. Too soon. He was only 40.

Our two leaders are scary, scary people. Both Acctorp and Newt's Hoots went to the bullpen for this hit. They get 18 for the hit and 3 for the duet. Total: 21. Acctorp's name still begins with A, and you know the rest.

Take a break, boys. Let us amateurs catch up.

I was in my cubicle waiting for my lunch, when in he walked without knocking. He was the kind of guy you could tell never knocked when there was no door on the cubicle.

He had a jaw so square, you could measure rooms with it. He was holding a pizza box so square you could put a pizza in it. He had the kind of laughing eyes that somehow never got the joke. He had hair so slippery, even Sonny Bono could have skied safely on it.

He said, "That'll be $19.99 for your veggie and sausage pie and did you hear Mickey Spillane got clipped, knocked off, whacked, fitted with cement shoes, popped." He had an eye for trouble and an ear for slang.

"He's dead?" I whispered, in a voice so husky, June Allyson would have been jealous, if she hadn't been whacked, too.

"Dead," he said, in a voice so barely audible, you could hardly hear it, "The kind of dead you don't come back from."

"You mean he's sleeping with the fishes?" I asked.

"No, ya blonde bimbo, not sleeping, dead," he spat the words at me through the cheap, tinny braces he wore, or maybe it was just the drool that was snagged on them.

Bill Schenley, who loves Hemingway because he's not Mickey Spillane and Mickey Spillane because he's not Hemingway, had Mike Hammer's daddy, hardboiler Spillane on his list. He was 88. I, the Jury award Bill 5 points for the kill and 5 for the stylish solo. He knocks me right out of 11th place.

And that hurts.

It hurts like Darren McGavin and Mickey Spillane both dying and not taking Stacy Keach with them.

It hasn't been a good week for me at alt.obituaries. And it doesn't get any better with the death of Philip M. D'Arcy Hart, a very important doctor I've never heard of, you've never heard of, probably most of the UK hasn't heard of. But because smarty-pants Louis and GS both knew who he was, I have to write this update. Ok, he transformed the fight against tuberculosis. Ok, he practically eradicated the disease. This does not make him interesting for my purposes. And this week, it's all about me.

But wait, here's that fact that can take a frighteningly boring update and turn it into something quite passable! To help his heirs, he bought and heavily annotated a book called What to Do When Someone Dies. He did this 25 years before his own death. Naturally, the 106-year old Dr. Hart is, to quote Alan King, survived by his wife. I'm guessing she had it at hand when he died on July 30. I'm guessing it was good to go for the last 25 years.

Louis and GS share this one-point hit on Dr. Hart. Plus they each get three points for playing nicely together. That's an awe-inspiring 4 points. Is my punishment over? Next thing you know, I'll have to write about some dictator somewhere.

So here I am on a grueling (except for a lovely lunch in Stanley Park with Matt Kruk) three-week shoot in Vancouver, BC, thanking my lucky stars that the AO Deadpool is as cool as the weather and vice versa.

As soon as I finish that thought, Cardinal Willebrands goes to meet his maker. So I enlist the services of one Bill Schenley who I figure would love to recap this noble man's life, since even if Bill's not exactly pious, he's at least not the slightest bit Jewish. And it turns out Bill is itching to write about Castro, but is lukewarm on the subject of Roman Catholic Dutch cardinals.

I believe his exact words were: "What the fuck do I know about Roman Catholic Dutch cardinals?"

So it's back to me.

And when I decide to actually read one of the three lengthy obits I've posted, I see that his big thing was getting the Catholics and Jews to play nicer together. So you see, things happen for a reason.

Cardinal Willebrand died this week at 96. Kathi goes all the way to Holland for this blessed solo. It's not a huge scorer, just two points for the hit and five for the solo for a total of seven, but it does make her the highest scoring woman in the game, displacing, naturally, me. Like I said, things happen for a reason. Nice work, Kathi.

Susan Butcher could be described with one word. Tough. If you need more than one word: Real tough.

She was the quick answer to any man who thought women were the weaker sex.

And she revolutionized the care of Northern mush dogs. She loved dogs - and that made me love who she was and what she did.

She was tough to the very end.

No.

She was real tough to the very end.

1152 miles across the Alaskan wilderness. 100 m.p.h. winds. Sub-zero temperatures. Blizzards. Snow blindness. Avalanches. Wild animals. None of them obstacles for Susan Butcher, who won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race 4 times in five years, a record, not just for a woman, but for anyone. She dominated the sport. She was the sport.

I'm not even sure I knew the word "Iditarod" before I read an article last year in the NY Times about Susan Butcher's terrible illness, but I knew enough to put her on my list. So did Acctorp. Butcher was only 51 when she died this week of leukemia after complications from a bone marrow transplant had played havoc with her body. We get 14 points for the hit and three for the duet. Total: 17. This puts Acctorp solidly in first and me back in the top women's position. Sorry, Kathi. I told you these things happen for a reason.

What can you say about director/producer Sam White that hasn't been said before? Um, just about everything, it seems. Even Variety took its sweet time pumping out an obit, and you get an obit at Variety if you're a junior publicist. You get an obit if you're the administrative assistant to the junior publicist. It's hard to understand exactly why Sam White was denied a timely sendoff. After all, this was a man who was responsible for "Reveille With Beverly," starring Ann Miller, "People are Funny," "Return of the Vampire," with Bela Lugosi, "The Girl in the Case," "After Midnight with Boston Blackie," "Louisiana Hayride" and "Tahiti Nights" with Jinx Falkenberg.

This was a man who produced a film for which William Shatner took time off from Star Trek to play twin half-breed brothers.

This was a man whose 2003 retrospective was held at his retirement home.

I think the truth is, his two brothers (Jules and Jack) were slightly more famous. There was that connection to The Three Stooges, after all. And Sam, 99 at his death, may have outlived the fame he once had. But Sam had the last laugh, didn't he. And that's pretty much all that counts.

Sam White died way back on August 5. James Neibaur gets the 2 points for the hit, the 5 points for the solo, and the satisfaction of knowing that Sam White finally got an obit.

James Van Allen was one of the fathers of the US space program. He discovered Earth's radiation belts, coincidentally called the Van Allen belts. What are the chances of *that*? He had scientific instruments on more than 200 rockets, satellites and space probes, and was on the cover of Time Magazine. He was a wonderful scientist, teacher, family man, explorer plus he had great genes. He never lost his insatiable curiosity. "Certainly one of the most enthralling things about human life," he once observed, "is the recognition that we live in what, for practical purposes, is a universe without bounds." Personally, I found it interesting that while he taught at big-name institutions, all his degrees are from schools in Iowa.

Great minds think alike.

James Van Allen lived to 91, almost 92. The Fireball is on a tear!! As is Kentucky Wizard. The two get two plus three for the twofer. Total: 5 KW moves up a place or two and The Fireball stays right where he is. Last, but with two hits, worth 8 points. Interesting strategy you got there, The Fireball.

General Alfredo Stroessner was a model leader. He reigned after a bloody civil war and brought stability to his region. He declared a "state of siege," which gave him a free hand to deal with his enemies. He turned Paraguay into a vast family enterprise and was, for a long time, the country with the most uneven distribution of wealth. He made it the center of all illegal big business. If you joined his Colorado Party, you were rewarded with jobs and money and loyalty.

He rigged all the elections, removed all checks and balances, and saw to the changing of the constitution so that he could reign forever.

He used fear to stay in power. He had a chief torturer who was quite famous for working with shit and cattle probes. He had a soft spot for other torturers and gave Dr. Mengele a home.

His motto was Peace, Justice, Democracy.

He was finally removed from office, yet the people were so conditioned to fear, it took years for civil liberties to return. A trove of government documents was found that detailed the arrest, torture and murder of thousands of Paraguayans. They called it the Archives of Terror.

For all his hard work, General Alfredo Stroessner was rewarded with a long, peaceful retirement in Brazil.

Charlene and Lurker3791 were among the millions of people who wanted Stroessner dead. And dead he is, at 93. They get 2 points for the hit, and 3 for the duet. Total: 5. Reminder: Pinochet lives.

WHO LOUIS HAD IN HIS DEADPOOL THIS YEAR:

Camille Loiseau, "doyenne des Français depuis mars 2005", est décédée le 12 août à l'hôpital Paul-Brousse à Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) à l'âge de 114 ans et six mois, a indiqué vendredi à l'AFP l'Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris. Camille Loiseau était née le 13 février 1892 à Paris. Elle résidait depuis 1999 à Villejuif. Dès son arrivée à l'hôpital Paul-Brousse, "elle était devenue +une figure+ du service de gérontologie par sa bonne humeur et sa constante coquetterie. Camille Loiseau avait fêté son 114e anniversaire lors d'une fête organisée en son honneur. Elle avait même bu un peu de champagne", indique l'AP-HP dans un communiqué.

WHO LOUIS WILL HAVE IN HIS DEADPOOL NEXT YEAR:

Marie-Simone Capony devient la doyenne des Français, après le décès, la semaine derniére, de Camille Loiseau âgé de 114 ans. «Simone», comme tout le monde l'appelle, a vu le jour en 1894, l'anné de la condamnation d'Alfred Dreyfus. Elle habite depuis trente ans un modeste deux-piéces à Cannes. Simone Capony ne peut plus marcher depuis qu'elle a été opérée voici quinze ans (elle avait 99 ans) du col du fémur. Mais elle fumait encore il y a cinq ans et ne boudait pas le rosé. Peut-être le secret de sa longévité?

Newt's Hoots, Louis and Buford get the one-point hit and one point for the trio.

I don't have to say any more than "small boy salutes his father's coffin as it goes by on a horse-drawn carriage" for you to know which photo I was referring to. Such is the iconic case, as well, of Joe Rosenthal's most famous photo.

All I have to say is "Marines struggle to raise a flag on a hill" and there it is, in your mind's eye. It's not Joe's favorite shot, but it always gave him a jolt to talk about coming up the hill and seeing "our" flag being hoisted in the air. It's a flash of triumph, a wellspring of inspiration, and although I'm not even sure the photo has a name, it will never be forgotten. The carnage at Iwo Jima was extraordinary and most of the flag-raisers didn't live long enough to even see themselves in the most famous photo of the Second World War. But Joe Rosenthal lived a very long time, and he never felt anything but humble about his achievements. "I took the picture," he once said. "The Marines took Iwo Jima." He died this week at 94.

Mark and Newt's Hoots team up on the deadpool battlefield for this one. They get 2 points for the hit, and three for the duet. Total: 5

Maria Esther de Capovilla and Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin were born the same year. But she drank donkey's milk as a child, and they didn't. And that might have made all the difference.

Maria Esther de Capovilla was 116 years old last week, and there wasn't a goddamn (authenticated) person in the world she was younger than. Then she died, and that was the end of her fame. Of course, Louis was all over it, but so was Buford. For that remarkable prescience, they each get 1 point (hit) and 3 points (duet). 4 points total.

I'm outta here. Time for my cafe con donkey leche.

He was always a star, of course, because stars were the ones who put asses in seats, but I think leading man are better words to describe what Glenn Ford was all about. The dependable, quiet, handy man who took the lead. He played a narrow range of character types: cops, cowboys, experts (bombs, lighthouses...) dads, G-men, husbands. I think he was faithful to all his on-screen wives. Ford was bringing home a pay packet. Mitchum wasn't. He mostly played the competent and intelligent, rarely the stupid and sleazy.

You could count on him. Off-screen, as well. He took part, indeed he was paramount, in an effort that saved the lives of thousands of concentration camp victims. He did it, but he didn't brag about it.

The last of the leading men, Glenn Ford, died this week at 90. A group of strong, silent types were counting on him. The twins, Erik and James Neibaur, Mark, Philip and Ray Arthur. For their troubles, the five of them get--wait for it--two points each.

Everyone knows a little something about actor Robert Earl Jones, but I'll bet all those little somethings are different. You knew he was James Earl Jones' father. That's kind of obvious. But did you know that he both played Joe Louis and boxed with Joe Louis? Or that he was a confidence man in The Sting? Ran marathons in his 80's? Was blacklisted and earned a living finishing floors in the 50's? Of course, the most interesting little something about Robert Earl Jones is that he managed to die and get buried without anyone knowing about it. Maybe even his famous son.

Robert Earl Jones, actor, boxer, runner, and very famous father, died on September 7. He was something like 96. Charlene has been very patient waiting for an obit so she gets her 7 points. Two for the hit, 5 for the solo. And if it turns out, as Kent insists, that Jones was over 100, I'll personally see to it that Charlene gets that extra point. As it is, Charlene is in a dead heat with King Daevid, so she could use it.

This is my first AO deadpool update that's also the posting of the death. But have no fear. There was an AP obit. It's just that no one picked it up.

Effie Louisa Hobby was 109 when she died on September 13. She was an inveterate voter, which she regarded as a privilege. She was known for having voted in every local, state and national election since the 19th Amendment gave women the vote in 1920. That's 86 years of voting. She never forgot that there was a time when her vote didn't count.

The first time she voted for president, she elected Warren Harding and the last time she did it, she voted for George W. Bush, for the second time. She was a lifelong Republican. When Laura Bush called her, Mrs. Hobby had this to say: "Give your husband my regards, and tell him I wish I always agreed with him."

Buford campaigned for this one and I'm endorsing it. He gets 1 point for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 6 Excellent, Buford.

Now that Effie Hobby is dead, I can't help but wonder who they'll get to cast her vote in the mid-term elections.

He was built like a shot-putter. Which would have been okay, except he was a pole vaulter. Which is no big deal unless you do it in the Olympics. Which a lot of people do except he did it in 1932 in California, nearly 75 years ago.

Peter Clentzos was an American and also the oldest living Greek Olympian. He didn't have a chance to compete in the United States *for* the United States, but for his native Greece and he never forgot the experience. For the rest of his life, he held pole vault records, he taught, he coached, he stayed fit, and he helped found the Senior Olympics. He carried the Olympic torch en route to Athens in 2004, and that's what I would call coming full circle in life.

Peter Clentzos died last week at 97. JohnnyB wrote me to apologize for adding to my backlog of updates, but it's a pleasure to recap this stunning solo. Johnny gets 2 points for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 7

(Thanks to Bill Schenley for help with this one.)

He was an immigrant draft dodger, a plumber and a carpenter and then he went to the movies and saw Steve Reeves play Hercules. Everything in Miklos Hargitay's life changed after that. He won the Mr. Universe, Mr. Olympia and Mr.America contests, and never looked back.

Mickey Hargitay had just about everything he could have wanted out of life. From Mae West to Jayne Mansfield to the Pink Palace with the heart-shaped swimming pool. He also made some (un)forgettable films, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, The Loves of Hercules, and who could remember, I mean, forget, The Bloody Pit of Horror. Guv Arnold played him in The Jayne Mansfield Story on TV, and called him a role model. His daughter Mariska won an Emmy for her TV work this year, and called him a superhero.

Miklos (Mickey) Hargitay died this week at 80, and Yersinia Pestis called it all by himself. He gets 5 for the hit, 5 for the solo. Total: 10. Nice work, Pest.

This was one tough broad. She cozied up to and snarled at world leaders routinely, as her interviews were both disarming and well-armed. They answered her questions, or they paid the price. Sometimes both. She complained about Castro's odor and Ali's belching, and she got Kissinger in hot water with Nixon. (They are all having the last laugh.)

She accused Muslims of breeding like rats, but she was conflicted on the subject of her own motherhood. Her recent polemics on Islam endeared her to some -- the NY Post editorial today is essentially a love letter--and enraged others. People who felt her freedom of speech wasn't quite as essential as theirs. She was adored and reviled and read. She made life interesting.

Here's a recent New Yorker article about her. She could cook, too.

www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060605fa_fact

Oriana Fallaci spent the last years of her life in NY, visiting its good doctors. But she went home to Italy to die. She was 77. Acctorp, Erik and Raven get 8 points for the hit, and one for the trio. Total: 9. Erik and Oriana Fallaci. The mind boggles.

Patricia Kennedy made two big mistakes in her life. The first one was being born female. Joe Kennedy had ambitions for his daughters that weren't quite presidential, or even senatorial. They were more like secretarial. The other mistake she made was being infatuated with Hollywood and its movie stars. Joe Kennedy knew about the dangers of Hollywood. After all, he spent a lot of his free time with Gloria Swanson! Still, she persevered, married the dashing Lawford, and lived the rat-pack life until the rat two-timed her with hookers and blow. The rest of her life was impeccable, with a touch of alcoholism. She raised money for the arts, campaigned for her brothers and enjoyed the Lawford offspring.

Patricia Kennedy Lawford died this week at 82. Newt's Hoots, our fearless second-place contestant, knew it would happen in this calendar year. He gets 5 points for the hit, 5 for the solo. Total: 10.

(Please note that this was written by Bill Schenley. I would not want anyone making a mistake and thinking I wrote it.)

Cardinal Louis Albert Vachon, Archbishop Emeritus of Quebec, died on September 29, and for some strange reason, I'm the one stuck with writing the Deadpool Update.

I've already explained to Amelia that I know nothing about Cardinals, but obviously that tidbit of information did not sink in. So I'll do my best...and hope for accuracy in mediocrity.

I wasn't sure how Vachon ended up in Quebec. In fact, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a Northern Cardinal until I looked it up. Then it hit me ... he left St. Louis for the same reason everyone leaves St. Louis. It's St. Louis. Still, there is the lingering thought: What if he migrated for the same reason other Cardinals migrate. Altar boys.

Anyway, Cardinal Vachon was born in the Finch family in 1912 and was 7.5 inches long. He had a large, conical bill, which caused him much humiliation as a child. Well, that and the bright red plumage. This, I suppose, is what drove him to the church. I mean, cmon, how many places will offer sanctuary to a guy with a really big, pointy nose who eats seeds and has feathers in his ass.

I do know that Charlene was the only deadpooler to have the Cardinal on her list, and because he was 94, she gets two points for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 7.

Next year, Charlene, maybe you could pick Stan Musial or Joe Garagiola?

Another Bill Schenley special:

Acctorp had two Snooker players on his deadpool list, John Spencer and Paul Hunter.

Who the hell picks Snooker players? What are Snooker players?

I've been shooting pool for almost 50 years ... and my best guess it's something like 9-ball ... without the 9-ball and without the "Gimme another fuckin' Bud," "Gimme some fuckin' room" and "Nice fuckin' tits, baby."

Anyway, Paul Hunter was not just another Snooker player. He not only won the British Open and the Welsh Open but three Wembley Masters titles after turning professional at the age of 16.

But the "Beckham of the Baize" was diagnosed with a rare form of stomach cancer in 2005 and died this week at the age of 27. Acctorp, who probably had Hunter's 1995 Topps (#27) Snooker Series rookie card, was all over it. He gets an ungodly amount of points. 22 points for the hit and 5 for the solo. Total: 27. The most ever scored in this game.

Sometime in 2003, after the mission had been accomplished, there was advertised a private screening of The Battle of Algiers in the Pentagon for military and civilian war planners. This was the flyer sent out:

"How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film."

The Battle of Algiers was the basis of Gillo Pontecorvo's fame. Someone asked the old leftist, whose film explored terrorism and torture in colonial Algeria, what he thought of it as a training film. He answered that it was good for learning how to make movies, not so good for making war. The man who believed we should make film, not war, died this week on the eve of the Rome Film Festival. He was 86. So what did I see in Pontecorvo? Was it the film he directed with one of my other deadpool picks, Alida Valli? Or was it because he was Jewish? Directed commercials? Or because I have a soft spot for political filmmakers? I don't know what it is, but there he is on my list. Giving me 5 points for the hit. 5 points for the solo. Total: 10. I have the dubious distinction of being the highest scoring pooler with the fewest hits.

Ross Davidson was one of the many stars of the long-running, beloved BBC series, The EastEnders. He was in the original cast playing nurse Andy O'Brien, starting in 1985. He played it for 18 months and then went down in the history of the show to become the first main character to be killed off. Kiss of death, if you ask me.

Ross Davidson died in October. He was young and it was a soap opera disease, a brain tumor. He was 57. I missed it. Bill missed it. But Acctorp was watching his stories. He gets 14 points for the hit, 5 for the solo. Total: 19.

Guess what. There's more.

I don't think the great travel writer Eric Newby ever wrote an official autobiography. But then he didn't really have to. He just took to the road and let everyone in on the details. I've just posted three marvelous obituaries from the UK, which provide a great deal of those details. But really, I recommend reading any one of his books. There's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, in which he takes a short walk in the Hindu Kush, and there's my favorite, Love and War in the Apennines, in which he's taken prisoner and escapes and meets a woman who teaches him Italian and then finds her after the war and marries her. What can I say. I'm a girl.

Eric Newby died this week at 86. And I had him. Which means I've gotten the last two hits. Which means you can accuse me of cheating. But if it makes you feel any better, I didn't have Jane Wyatt.

5 points for the hit, 5 for the solo. Total: 10.

I watched Father Knows Best religiously. I don't really remember much, but I do remember that the older daughter was just like my sister, acting all grown-up and darting in and out of the shadows. And the little one was just like me, difficult but adorable. The only difference was that in my house, there was no brother and if I got called anything, it was Ketzeleh, not Kitten. Other than that, the family dynamics were pretty much the same. My mother baked pies all day and wore pearls at the dinner table. My father came home every night and changed into a cardigan. His wise counsel overcame all crises. And every half hour or so, we learned a very important lesson. That's why I watched Father Knows Best religiously. It was like a fucking mirror.

Wow, those drugs they gave me are great.

Jane Wyatt, a lovely old soul, who was blacklisted, I'm surprised to learn, showed those bastards and lived longer than any of them. She died this week at 96. Charlene and the twins (Erik and James N) get the hit. (There were three kids in the Anderson family. What a coincidence!) They each get 3 points: 2 for the hit, and one for the trio.

(Written by B. Schenley. Thanks.)

Red Auerbach has died. He was 89, but in basketball years, that's about 8900.

I was a Knicks fan as a kid, and as such I hated Red Auerbach. I hated him because he was the best coach the NBA ever saw. I hated him because he became the best general manager the NBA would ever see. And, of course, I hated him because the Celtics were the best team in the NBA.

Red Auerbach, lighting his damned cigar as much as ten minutes before the game ended, just to humiliate the Knicks. Red Auerbach, bullying the refs into giving all the calls to the Celtics.

His smirk. The derisive laughter. Turning his back on the Garden.

But mostly it was his winning. I hated him winning. In the end, however, Red Auerbach was everything I loved about the NBA, and when he left, like Red, I went back to watching college basketball.

The world of sport lost a giant, but their loss is a gain for The Fireball, Laurie Mann, Kentucky Wizard and Jazz Vulture. They knew Red would blow his last whistle this year and for that they get 5 points each.

Depending on which obituary you read, P.W. Botha was either a misunderstood man or the 20th century's most evil tyrant. As far as I'm concerned, he has too much competition for the latter to own that title outright. But his credentials are good. He was ruthless, efficient and a hard-worker. He had a short-lived flirtation with the Nazi party. When he ruled South Africa under apartheid for 11 years, he did pretty much anything he could think of to thwart black majority rule, including state-sponsored terrorism, murder, and other assorted atrocities, like bulldozing houses and doing research to find chemicals and biological agents that would work only on black people. (He showed great compassion for the "coloureds." They were halfway to being white, weren't they?) When it all came to an end and they tried to get him for his crimes against humanity, they couldn't, of course. These bastards are always too smart for that sort of thing. P.W. Botha died this week at 90. He was unapologetic to the end.

What a cool solo for Johnnyb. He gets 2 for the hit, and 5 for the solo. Total: 7 Now can we get to the rest of the evil people? Please?  

William Styron was one important writer. Sophie's Choice made Meryl Streep and her accent famous: "Stingo ate my baby!" He was one of the leading authors of his generation. His ancestors and his wife's ancestors always provided financial support during the slow creative periods. He wrote a remarkably insightful work about slavery from his spreads in Roxbury, Connecticut and Martha's Vineyard. And when he got depressed because alcohol wasn't doing the trick anymore, he wrote a memoir so that we could all wallow in his personal misery. (Just let me at J. Didion.)

Okay, he was important. And a great writer. And he will be missed. So maybe I'm not the best person to be doing this. William Styron died this week at 81. Newt's Hoots, with nearly half his list dead and buried, valiantly tries to keep pace with runaway Acctorp. The hit gives him 10 points. Five and five. Wouldn't it be great to have another photo finish? Preferably of the evil people.

If you've ever read the books or seen the movie, you know that the Gilbreths were efficiency experts. They believed in doing things faster and cheaper. So I'll get right to the point.

Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, who wrote Cheaper by the Dozen with her brother Frank, died this week at 98. Kathi and Louis Epstein share the honors. They get 2 points for the hit and three for the partnership. Total: 5

Johnny Sain was a four-time 20-game winner for the Boston Braves and he saved 40 games for the New York Yankees. He was an All-Star three times and he played in four World Series but he'll best be remembered for the poem Gerald Hern wrote in September of 1948:

First we'll use Spahn
then we'll use Sain
Then an off day
followed by rain
Back will come Spahn
followed by Sain
And followed
we hope
by two days of rain.
- Gerald Hern (1948) -

And that's too bad, because even though he won 139 major league games, and saved 51, he should be remembered, not only as a great pitcher, but also as baseball's greatest pitching coach. No pitching coach ever had more 20-game winners than Johnny Sain did with 15 (Whitey Ford, Jim Bouton, Denny McLain, Wilber Wood, Jim Kaat to name a few). "What general likes a lieutenant that's smarter?"
- Jim Bouton (after Yogi Berra fired Sain as his pitching coach) -

Johnny Sain, who pitched for eleven major league seasons with Boston, New York and the Kansas City Athletics, and coached for almost thirty years, with the A's, Yankees, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox, died on November 7th. He was 89.

"You can work hard all you want.
But if you don't work smart,
it won't do you any good."
- Johnny Sain -

Newt's Hoots is working smart. He's catching up to Acctorp one hit at a time. He gets 5 points for Sain and 5 for thinking of it all by himself. Total: 10. Maybe it'll do him some good.

Jack Palance had this scowl. With it, there was no denying he was the bad guy, but he also had this devilish grin and that made him a whole different kind of bad guy. His timeline is impressive. The son of a coal miner, a winning prizefighter, a war hero, a movie star, an Oscar winner. He was the first to admit he made a lot of crap, but when he was working with great directors and top-notch scripts as he did with Kazan in Panic in the Streets or Serling in Requiem for a Heavyweight, there was no one better. The last thing I saw him in, the last thing he did, was a lovely TV movie based on an Anne Tyler novel and directed by the guy who did City Slickers. The part was magnificent and so was he.

Jack Palance died today at 87. Wendy and Lurker3791 both needed a hit and together they got one with Jack Palance aka Vladimir Palaniuk aka Jack Brazzo. They each get 5 plus 3. Total: 8

Some deadpool updates are harder to write than others. It isn't hard because there's nothing to say about Australian actress Belinda Emmett. There's plenty to say. She was talented and beautiful and, I'll bet, real nice, too. (All the Australians I've ever met — except for the guy who fired me in 1993 when I had a cast on my leg — are real nice.) She was one of the stars of a soap opera that's been seen all around the world. She sang. She was married to a beloved TV personality. What makes it hard is that she was dealing with breast cancer through most of her twenties and dead of it at 32. This doesn't seem quite fair.

Fair or not, it's true. For Acctorp and Philip, this translates to 23 points. 20 for the hit, 3 for the duet. This hit may very well have been Acctorp's way of saying buh-bye to the rest of the pack. And Philip, our resident Aussie (who I'm sure is real nice) moves up something like ten places. Well done, boys.

John Maynard Keynes might have been the most famous economist of the 20th century, but Milton Friedman was the most important. He changed not only America, but the rest of the world, too.

Although the five-foot tall Milton Friedman took some heat - actually he took a lot of heat - for assisting General Pinochet, the Chilean dictator. He provided economic policy advice to Chile but never endorsed any other aspects of the Pinochet regime. Chile's economy grew.

'Uncle Milty' was an economist who influenced not only Ronald Reagan but Bill Clinton, as well. The only way to stop inflation, he said, "was to shut off the press." On Thursday, November 16th, Milton Friedman's press was shut off.

The Fireball may not be able to balance his checkbook, but he was able to balance out his list of deadpool picks with Uncle Milty, and for that he gets two points for the hit and five for the solo. His seven total points moves him up four spots.

I never heard of the Godfather of Celtic music, John Allen Cameron, until he appeared in Raven's deadpool list, but now I'm very sorry I never got the chance to see him perform. According to everything I've read, he mesmerized audiences, whether they were expecting it or not. For many years, he was the solo voice for the Celtic tradition in Canada. And he did it all--reels and jigs--on one 12-string guitar. I'm looking for some video, but that may take some time. In the meantime, here's a lovely piece from the CBC. There's an interview with the son, as well as others who were influenced by his music. Hope it works.

All of 5 foot 5, Willie 'Will o' the Wisp' Pep is remembered most for his fancy footwork and a quartet of fights with Sandy Saddler, the last of which is often cited as one of the dirtiest fights in boxing history. Over three decades, Pep won 230 bouts, lost 11 and had one draw. He could bob and he could weave and he made fans of everyone around him. Don Dunphy, THE fight announcer, who I once used for a voiceover, thought he was the best boxer he had ever seen, saying that he was so clever, he could come up to an opponent from behind.

I wish I could say he told this to me, but I was so in awe of Dunphy, our conversation never went past the business at hand. I read it in the New York Times today.

Guglielmo Papaleo died this week at 84. Erik 'Will o' the Wisp' Landers has gotten himself a solo with this knockout hit. He gets five points for the pick, five for the solo, for a total of 10.

I know the entire newsgroup joins me in congratulating you, Erik.

Casey Coleman is rounding third and headed home. The longtime voice of the Cleveland sports teams, his was a voice known to a generation of Cleveland fans. No, that first line wasn't mine. It's how he ended every broadcast on one of the radio shows he hosted for the Cleveland Indians. (In the first person, that is.) So what would he have said if it had been the Browns? I'm going far? Casey Coleman died in November at the age of 55. (Obit from USA Today)

I missed it. Bill missed it. But Acctorp is on top of his own hits. He scores big. 14 points for the hit, 5 for the solo. Total : 19

But wait, there's more.

Martha Tilton was one of those honey-throated girl singers who was a fixture in my TV-watching childhood. If there was a film that required a nightclub scene, chances are excellent she was liltin' away in the background while the boy meets girl etc. plot plodded along. I could watch that stuff non-stop. Sometimes she was there behind the scenes providing a lovely singing voice for a non-singer like Stanwyck. In her heyday, she crisscrossed the country with people whose names you know, Dorsey and Goodman. They got all the credit for her singing, but it doesn't look like she minded too much. It actually looks like she was having a swell time.

Martha Tilton died this week at 91 and I can't resist — who could — saying that she's singing with the angels now. Ray Arthur gets this delicious solo, his second hit of the week (but wait!) He gets 2 points for the hit, and 5 for the solo. Total: 7. This moves him up a whole bunch of places. Hit # 91. Will we hit the magic number before the end of the year?

A Bad Poem for a Bad Man (For Pablo)

I'm pleased to say
General Pinochet
is dead today.
And should I pronounce it Pinochet
I can no longer fret
that he's not dead yet.

You can debate all you want whether Chile prospered under Pinochet, but the truth is, people suffered horribly under his rule and I've had the good fortune of meeting many wonderful people who survived torturous prison sentences in places like Dawson Island.

You can read all about it here: www.dawson2000.com/jeria.htm

??? Guest, Buford, Charlene, King Daevid, Louisiana Lou, Lurker3791, Mark, Ray Arthur and Yersinia Pestis were rooting at the top of their lungs for a 2006 Pinochet hit. They each get 2 points, not a huge score in the AO Deadpool, but a magnificent tally on the scoreboard of evil.

(This update was written by Bill Schenley. My bad poems are better than his bad poems.)

At 116, Lizzie Bolden's only claim to fame was being recognized as the oldest person in the world. To no one's great surprise, she no longer holds that distinction.

Lizzie Bolden didn't own an axe
She never gave her mother forty whacks
But had she known what Buford and Louis done
She'd a given them both forty-one.

Louis Epstein (to no one's great surprise) and Buford take the honors on this one. They get 4 points apiece, one for the hit, and three for the duet. Buford moves up a few places and Louis returns to AO after a long silence to move up one place.

Nice one, guys.

Who didn't admire Peter Boyle? He was everyone's idea of a great actor. He made you laugh, he made you mad, he made you think. He had impeccable standards and chose roles accordingly. He didn't want to glamorize violence, he didn't like it when people cheered his bigotry, and he didn't like being typecast. Which is why he played a hitman, a singing monster, a general, a grumpy dad, even a psychic insurance agent. Alas, Peter Boyle died this week at 71.

And talk about admiring a performance. This is Ray Arthur's third hit of the week, his second in a row, the last two solos. He's moved up something like ten places with the three hits. My hat's off to you, Ray. Quite an impressive week. Can you keep it up??

(I hated their cartoons so, I couldn't think of what to say. The only one I ever liked was the Jetsons, and who knows why I liked that. So I'm grateful to Bill S. for writing this update.)

Joseph Barbera and William Hanna were terrific animators ... until they started working in television. And it wasn't just the sloppy, sparse background or even reducing their drawings from 1000 to 300 per minute.

They exiled the punch, literally, from the Tom & Jerry days, and began creating pap for zombie children of the 1960s.

Still, the two of them were pioneers in animation and their cartoons of that era remain just as popular today, thanks to the Cartoon Network, as they were when glassy-eyed children carried their first Yogi Bear lunchboxes to school.

Besides Yogi Bear, there was Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, The Jetsons, Top Cat and many more forgettable, little more than single-line drawings, that haunt animators around the world. Hanna died in 2001 and now Joe Barbera has been erased, but not before Bill Schenley, Denise, James N., King Daevid, KW and Wendy penciled him onto their deadpool lists. Barbera was 95, so they each get 2 points for the hit.

Frank Stanton was one of those company men who started at the top. Excuse me. Dr. Frank Stanton. He understood the importance of branding earlier than most. He and Paley ran CBS in an uneasy partnership for decades, and it was a class act. Remember when CBS was a class act? There was Playhouse 90. Murrow and his investigative team. The best news division on the tube. He made Arthur Godfrey and Jackie Gleason stars. He loved Lucy. He crunched the numbers well, and spared little expense. He even bought the Yankees. True, he didn't have the sex appeal of a man like Paley. I don't think his character even made it to Clooney's film. But he stayed where he was at CBS because he knew just where the business of TV was headed, knew exactly how to take it there, and made very few mistakes along the way. Ok. So he hired retired FBI agents to investigate his employees' political leanings in the 50's. And maybe he approved a little too eagerly of loyalty oaths and blacklisting. But then, when the coast was somewhat clearer, he stood up to the bullies in Washington as they took issue with the news coverage of Vietnam and the Selling of the Pentagon. As important as he was, he was usually in the shadow of that slightly more important figure. And that may be why today, at the New York Times, Dr. Frank Stanton is below the fold, and James Brown is above it.

Louis Epstein and GS saw CBS eye to eye on Dr. Frank Stanton, who died at 98 on Christmas Eve. They get 2 points for the hit and 3 for the duet. Nice one, boys.

The Hardest Working Man in Show Business inspired some of the best obituaries I've read this year. But James Brown was always good copy. Around him, pretty much from his birth to his death, all hell broke loose. A good deal of the time, it was legal. Or not. But if the New York Times saw fit to give him a big sendoff from their front page, you know we're talking about someone who was pretty damned important in the world. He was one of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's first 10 inductees. He got a Kennedy Center Honor. I don't think the queen knighted him, but I'm sure they discussed it at length. After all, his wild rhythms are the basis of all the hip-hop and all the pop in the world.

The Minister of Super Heavy Funk picked a very cool day to die. December 25. He was 73. And I'm going to give out my first award for this year, and I hope it's not premature. Jazz Vulture, who would certainly agree that up to now, his was an abominable year on the AO deadpool, just got himself the Painfully Obvious Solo of the Year Award. He gets 8 points for the hit, 5 for the solo, and moves up 7 or 8 places. Get down, JV.

Had he not been elected to the House of Representatives, had he not been appointed to the Vice Presidency and ultimately become President, had he not pardoned Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford would still have been a candidate for the AO Deadpool as a college football star. What this says about anything, I don't know. I do know it would have been a solo. And therein lies the difference:

Buford, Charlene, Corby, Dannyb, Denise, DGH, Ed Varner, Erik, GS, James N, Jazz Vulture, Kathi, King Daevid, KW, Laurie Mann, Louisiana Lou, Lurker3791, ???Guest, Mark, Philip, Ray Arthur, The Fireball, and Wendy. That's the biggest crowd of the year on the AO Deadpool, I believe. It's notable for two of the gamesters getting their second hit of the holiday week: GS and Jazz Vulture. Everyone gets two points, but every two points helps in the heat of competition.

Hey, here's an interesting tidbit. The bottom five players had Gerald Ford. The top five players didn't. Hmmmm.

2006 has been an excellent year for despot deaths. Oh sure, it would have been nice if the unindicted co-conspirators had been walking the gangplank with Saddam, but you can't have everything you want in life. Still very exciting. Not so you'd notice in the corridors of power. Bush went to bed early. Condi was at the post-Christmas shoe sales. And Rummy had a squash date with an old Bonesman buddy. But then, that crowd have never been real thrill-seekers.

Very dramatic finish to the year. DGH and ???Guest both jumped out of last and near-last to position themselves somewhere in the bottom third. Buford and Erik also moved up, Erik knocking me out of the top 5. Just four gamesters in 2006 had Saddam Hussein whose neck broke at 69. They get 11 points for the hit.

Please God, I beg of you. Keep Lady Bird alive until 2007. I can't keep changing these lists.