We Hardly Knew Ye: Scott Asheton

Dead at 64.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Harold Ramis

The cowriter of Animal House (1978), the director and cowriter of Caddyshack (1980), and the director and uncredited cowriter of Vacation (1983) is dead at 69.

Those were three of my favorite movies growing up, and they still are.

Lesser faves he directed and/or (co)wrote and/or acted in include Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981), Ghostbusters (1984), Back to School (1986), Groundhog Day (1993), and the underrated Stuart Saves His Family (1995).
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Bob Casale

Devo co-founder dead at 61.

That's him on the blue guitar.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Philip Seymour Hoffman

Dead at 46.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Billy Jack

Tom Laughlin is dead at 82.

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We Hardly Knew Ye: Paul Crouch

President and founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which has provided me with countless hours of guilty television pleasure for the last 27-odd years, is dead at 79.

He is survived by his wife Jan Crouch, and Jan's cotton-candy hair.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Lou Reed

Dead at 71.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Marcia Wallace

Carol Kester from The Bob Newhart Show and Edna Krabappel from The Simpsons is dead at 70.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Don James

The greatest coach in Washington football history died yesterday at age 80.

In 18 seasons, from 1975 to 1992, James lead the Huskies to 14 bowl games. They won ten of them, including four Rose Bowls. In 1991, his 12-0 Huskies shared the national championship with Miami.

Read more here.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Cal Worthington

Though he made his name in Southern California, his commercials aired relentlessly in the Seattle market too. Above is a sample; see many more here. New York Times obit.

Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal.
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2012: The Year of the Chickens!

In this, the last of this blog's measly 26 posts in 2012, I'll recap the stuff I've covered over the previous year, along with some things I didn't address. For starters, in February, Eliza and I installed a chicken coop in our backyard, and then brought home four two-month-old pullets: Rocky, Dolly, Rhodey, and Li'l Sweetie (above, shot by Eliza). Sadly, Rocky and Dolly succumbed to Marek's Disease, but Sweetie and Rhodey have thrived - since May, those gals have pumped out a whopping 334 eggs!

In other bird news, a day after Rocky was put to sleep, three robins were hatched in a nest by our back porch. Here are two of the eggs...

Within a day, all three robin chicks were eaten by some goddamn crows.

In non-bird deaths, in 2012 we said goodbye to the Beastie Boys and Ween, Ralph McQuarrie, and John Belushi (albeit 30 years after the fact). Also passing this year, but unacknowledged by this blog, were Matt Groening's Life in Hell, and the Seattle TV clown who inspired Krusty the Clown on Groening's The Simpsons, JP Patches... In July was I driving through the U-District when I happened upon the demolition of the UW's Lander Hall, a dormitory where I lived for a couple years in my late teens and did many grown-up, um, things, that I never done before...

Celebrating birthdays in 2012 were Paul Stanley and Muhammad Ali, as well as the 50th anniversaries of Mad, the Rolling Stones, the Seattle Monorail, the Seattle World's Fair and Spider-Man, along with the 25th anniversaries of Pleased to Meet Me and the 1987 NBA All-Star Game.

On top of this being the sixth full calendar year of the SteveMandich.com blog, I continued to maintain two other blogs -- Super Ichiro Crazy! (where the big news was his trade from Seattle to the Yankees) and Bigfoot is Real (which I just put on "temporary hiatus"). Upon the (galaxy) golden anniversary of the Seattle World's Fair, I started a commemorative blog. It was soon aborted, due to lack of both interest and inspiration. Still, I came away with this cool photo of some Space Needle models, taken at an art gallery near the Needle itself...

I visited Minnesota and New Mexico in 2012, though I didn't blog about my April SoCal trip -- in San Diego I met up with another Steve Mandich, a swell guy who's a credit to our name...

In Anaheim, my pal JP and I saw the Edmonton Oilers beat the Ducks, and the next night, we saw the eventual Stanley Cup-winning Kings beat the Oilers in L.A. I stupidly lost all my photos from those games, so here's a picture I took of the Watts Towers...

Earlier, and closer to home, I rode the Amtrak Cascades up to Vancouver, where I witnessed the Canucks beat the Coyotes in an overtime shootout. While in town, I attended the Vancouver International Boat Show, if only to see the insides of the revamped BC Place Stadium...

Here's another Vancouver photo, taken in Stanley Park...

In medical news, my Morton's toe that I viciously stubbed in 2004 finally got fixed in October -- the good foot doctor shaved away some arthritic bone and inserted a temporary three-inch pin. Here's a gnarly pic of how it looked a week after surgery...

Though 2012 was the Year of the Chickens, Eliza and I figure 2013 will be the Year of the Babies -- we're expecting fraternal twin girls on January 9! Here we are in our backyard on Thanksgiving...

Going into the new year, if I'm not blogging about it here, I'll be posting it on facebook.

As always, thanks for reading!
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Maakies

See the final strip here.

Dook dook dook.

UPDATE

Turns out Tony Millionaire was just keeping everyone on their toes... Look.

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We Hardly Knew Ye: Beastie Boys, Ween

I'm a little late with these, but last month marked both the passing of MCA (effectively ending the Beastie Boys) and Gener's announcement's that Ween was basically over. Double bummer.
 
Were you aware? The vinyl version of Ween's 1994 album Chocolate and Cheese was released by the Beastie's Grand Royal label.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Ralph McQuarrie

I knew nothing about the guy, except that he did some awesome conceptual paintings for the original Star Wars trilogy, and that he died on Saturday...

These are some of my favorites...

Here's an obituary...

His Wikipedia page...

And here is his official site.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: John Belushi

He died 30 years ago today, at age 33. This is finest moment...

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We Hardly Knew Ye: Kim Jong Il

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We Hardly Knew Ye: Redd Foxx

Lately I've been watching lots of Sanford and Son -- highlight reel above -- and it occurred to me that it was 20 years ago this month when the comic genius sadly passed away. Here's his basic info on Wikipedia, and a much better profile in Roctober, where he's enshrined in the zine's Hall of Dynamic Greatness.

Let us not forget the reversible Redd Foxx talking doll...

Hopefully it doesn't play the You Gotta Wash Your Ass routine.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: R.E.M.

In light of R.E.M.'s announcement yesterday that they were calling it quits, here are my ten favorite R.E.M. songs (in chronological order)...

"Radio Free Europe" (Hib-Tone version)
"Shaking Through"
"We Walk"
"Pretty Persuasion"
"(Don't Go Back to) Rockville"
"Fall On Me"
"Get Up"
"Country Feedback"
"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"
"E-Bow the Letter"
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Rick the Peanut Guy

Rick Kaminski, beloved longtime Kingdome/Safeco Field peanut slinger, dead of a brain aneurism at age 67.

Above, a classic Rainer Beer ad featuring Rick and another late, legendary Seattle sports vendor, Bill the Beerman.

More here.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Clarence Clemons

Glad I got to see The Big Man once, in 2008.
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