Saying Goodbye to a Canadian Ledgend:Denny Doherty

Denny Doherty, a founding member of the 1960s folk-pop band the Mamas and the Papas, died yesterday at his home in Mississauga, Ontario. He was 66. The cause was not immediately known, his daughter Emberly said. But she said her father had recently suffered kidney failure after surgery for a stomach aneurysm.

With rich, meticulous harmonies that could be tinged with darkness, the Mamas and the Papas where one of the most popular and influential American bands of the era between the Beatles’ arrival and Woodstock. Even for later generations like mine who missed their brilliance, their enduring hits, like “California Dreamin’,” “Monday, Monday” and “Dedicated to the One I Love,” that mixed the gentle jangle of folk with a rock backbeat and sweet, layered pop vocals, will forever be remembered.

Though John Phillips was the group’s principal songwriter, Mr. Doherty sang most of the male leads, in a clear, friendly tenor that he occasionally punctuated with rock ’n’ roll growls. In “California Dreamin’,” the group’s first hit, the singers harmonize about being stuck among the brown leaves and cold gray skies of winter, and pining for sunny respite. But Mr. Doherty’s lead on the verse suggests that his wishes may go unfulfilled:

Well, I got down on my knees
And I pretend to pray
You know the preacher lights the coals
He knows I’m gonna stay

The Mamas and the Papas, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, were one of the first major rock groups to include both women and men in equal performing roles, with Mr. Doherty, Mr. Phillips, Michelle Phillips and Mama Cass Elliot striking an image of casual, collegiate friendship. In reality, they were a destructive tangle of love affairs, accompanied by plenty of drugs and alcohol.

In 1993 Doherty took on not just the VO role of the Harbour Master but all the VO roles in Theodore Tugboat, a children's television show chronicling the "lives" of vessels in a busy harbour loosely based upon Halifax Harbour.

For more of his early solo career in Halifax and Montreal please click on the title link.

Later,
Kenaz

Stupid celebrities of the week

This week there was not one, not two, but a tri-fecta of celebrities afflicted with the dreaded "idiotitis" disease. The symptoms include, unexplained actions and verbal diarrhea.

The first outbreak of this potential career killer feld Michael Richards, former Seinfeld co-star. During a stand-up routine he called two black hecklers the n-word and then paced across the stage taunting the men for interrupting his show, peppering his speech with racial slurs and profanities. Moderating his tone at one point, Richards tells the audience, It shocks you, it shocks you and refers to what lays buried.

Once the "fever" died down the one character wonder went on national television and tried desperately to apologize and convey that he is not a racist. Nice try, not buying it, "No soup for you!". Or in his case, soup might be the only thing Richard's will be able to afford if the clubs don't let him back.

The second outbreak occurred when day time talk host Kelly Ripa made a comment that was conscrewed as a homophobic remark.

Clay Aiken was co-hosting with Ripa and became annoyed by her gift of the gab and covered Ripa's mouth with his hand during an interview on Friday's show. Ripa pushed his hand away.

Oh, I'm in trouble, said the 27-year-old American Idol star, to which Ripa responded, No, I just don't - I don't know where that hand's been, honey.

The poop really hit the fan when fellow daytime talk show co-host Rosie O'Donnell accused her of making a homophobic comment. Ripa phoned the show and tried to claim that O'Donnell was misunderstanding the comment and offered this rebuttal.

"He's shaking hands with everybody in the audience. I mean, it's cold and flu season. That's what I meant"

The furor will die down, and the two will appear together on an episode of "Celebrity Death Match". Two bad it won't be "celebrity Boxing". I would love to see Rosie knock the stuffing out of the annoying muppet.

Finally, the worse case of "Idiotitis" in known history, knocked the crap out of O.J Simpson.

Simpson says "the only thing he is guilty of is trying to get out of debt and provide for his children."

The former football star said in interviews that he deserved criticism for his part in the If I Did It book and interview deal. He said any profit from the book would be blood money, but he needed to pay his bills. It's all blood money and unfortunately I had to join the jackals, Simpson said, referring to authors of books about him. It helped me get out of debt and secure my homestead.

Good lord! I haven't heard that much mental masturbation since the Europeans conned the Natives out of all their land for a bag of beads. If O.J is so desperate for money maybe he can sell some crap on Ebay like normal people do.

Thank god Fox Broadcasting and publisher Harper Collins, cancelled the project this week and condemned it as revolting and exploitive.

Well that's all for now.

Later,
Kenaz

Rush Limbaugh attacks Michael J. Fox

Rush Limbaugh will say anything and attack anyone who challenges his buddy George Bush and to get his fat, ugly mug on TV. This time, his target is Michael J. Fox. Meds are something Rush should look into and consider taking.

The Story:Rush Limbaugh accused Michael J. Fox, actor and Parkinson's Disease victim, of deliberately going off of his meds to appear on camera with exaggerated symptoms of his disease for dramatic effect. Fox appeared in a recent Clair McHaskill (D-MO) Senate campaign ad, touting the need for stem cell research. Limbaugh even goes so far as to accuse Fox of faking his symptoms all together.

Audio

"I stated when I saw the ad, I was commenting to you about it, that he was either off the medication or he was acting. He is an actor, after all."-Limbaugh

Limbaugh claims to have emails in which Fox admitts in interviews that he goes off his medication." A tireless search of the Internet produces no such record of any interview, or any statement in which Fox has ever admitted or even suggested that he ever goes off his Parkinson's treatment at all, let alone for the purposes of shaking it up for the television audience.

Despicable, Limbaugh is the lowest of life to ever crawl out of somewhere south of the preverbial "bible belt". Somewhere smelly and very small(minded).

Here's the ad Limbaugh was talking about.



From a doctor commenting in a forum about the situation,

the chorea that Michael J Fox has in that ad comes from chronic use of dopamine agonists in the context of Parkinson's. They're movements from the medicine, not the disease itself. Although he might have odd movements OFF of his meds, they wouldn't look like the ones in the ad. They'd look like the Parkinson's-like presentation of Muhammed Ali's Dementia Pugilistica.

In addition, those movements are hard to imitate accurately because they stem from circuits between the basal ganglia and cortex that you can't just turn off or on. Those aren't volitional circuits. There is little chance he was acting, and if he was, he could only accentuate slightly movementse already had. In other words, this is as tragic as it looks.

Later,
Kenaz

Law & Order episode inspired by Gibson rant

Mixing police procedural and legal drama, Law & Order has often featured plots "ripped from the headlines" during its 17 seasons.

Examples include an episode broadcast a year after the death of Princess Diana, in which a woman is killed in a car accident after being pursued by a gossip reporter, and several others based on killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka.

The writers have once again taken a page from real life, with an upcoming episode that recalls actor-director Mel Gibson's recent drunk driving arrest and subsequent anti-Semitic tirade.

This week, the filmed-in-New York show has been shooting scenes for an episode entitled In Vino Veritas. This instalment of the hit show features comedian Chevy Chase depicting a TV actor who gets pulled over by police on suspicion of drunk driving and unleashes an anti-Semitic rant on the arresting officers.

However, the episode then veers dramatically away from reality as Chase's character is discovered to have blood on his shirt. Forensic scientists determine the blood to have come from the producer of the character's failed TV sitcom — a woman who happens to be Jewish.

The episode is set to air Nov. 3.

Later,
Kenaz