Dennis Hopper 1936-2010

One of my heroes has died.

Hollywood Rebel: Dennis Hopper 1936-2010

RIP Dale Hawkins, Doug Fieger

Dale Hawkins, best known for his 1957 hit "Suzie Q" (also known as "Suzy-Q"), has died in Little Rock, Arkansas at the age of 73, of complications from colon cancer.

He had been undergoing treatment at the Arkansas Hospice Center at St. Vincent's Doctors Hospital in Little Rock.

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Doug Fieger, lead singer, guitarist, and prime mover behind '80s hitmakers the Knack ("My Sharona," "Good Girls Don't") has died at the age of 57, following a lengthy battle with cancer.

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Of Birthdays, Bootlegs, and Alice

Yesterday was my sister Beth's 50th birthday, and I sent her this tasteful e-card featuring the late, great Jack Lord in full-on McGarrett mode:
Note: "Mike" is the "M" in "JM." Well, actually, it's "Michael," but I digress.

Anyway, she wrote me today that she doesn't feel a day over 16. I can relate, although I've had to move on from playing the eternal adolescent, what with fatherhood and trying to keep the wolves from the door and all that. Emotionally, I'm at least 18 now.

Growth!

My sister's birthday yesterday reminded me that today is the birthday of my best friend from grade school, John Portolese. I will always be grateful to John for having hipped me to the early work of Alice Cooper (the band, that is, with the original, classic line-up of Alice, Glenn Buxton, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, and Neal Smith).

Of late, I've been digging a couple of bootlegs from their early '70s heyday, Live at the Paramount, Seattle 1971 (the Love It to Death tour) and Killered in Pittsburgh '72 (featuring live renditions of the songs from my all-time fave Alice LP, Killer, hence the title), and waxing nostalgic about skipping school on Ash Wednesday '73 to purchase Killer at the local drugstore, and writing my first play, Alice Cooper Versus the Blob, under its influence.

Rock on, dudes.

Jesse Garon (1994-2009)

My dog, Jesse Garon, died on Saturday.

Anybody who knows me knows how much I loved that dog, a terrier/cocker/black lab mutt who was with me for fourteen years. I can't express in words how much Jesse meant to me. I can't do him justice. So, before I try, I will quote from a much better writer, Harlan Ellison:

There's nothing more maudlin than reading someone's treacly and bathetic self-pity in the form of a lament for a pet. Nonetheless, the death of my dog, Ahbhu, did me in...For eleven years, Ahbhu was my closest friend. He was responsible for my writing a story about a boy and his dog that many people have read. He was not a pet, he was a person. It was impossible to anthropomorphize him, he wouldn't stand for it. But he was so much his own kind of creature, he had such a strongly formed personality, he was so determined to share his life with only those he chose, that it was also impossible to think of him as simply a dog. Apart from those canine characteristics into which he was locked by his species, he comported himself like one of a kind.

That was Jesse. In spades.

He was born in Missoula, Montana, and was rescued from the animal shelter, hours before he was to be euthanized, by my ex-wife Wendy and her then-boyfriend, Nathan. Jesse Garon (named after Elvis Presley's stillborn twin) came into my life on December 2, 1995, when he arrived at Bradley International Airport on a flight from Montana a couple of weeks after Wendy and I got married. I remember asking her if he shed, and she told me, "Oh no, he doesn't shed."

Of course, he shed like crazy, but it didn't matter. We were pals from the get-go, and I indulged him with drive-thru cheeseburgers and "snappy dogs," steamed, natural casing frankfurters from the roadside hot dog stand in Whately, Mass., the name of which now escapes me. We would go on "pal-time rides" and he would stick his face out of the window to get a nosefull of fresh, Western Massachusetts air (except when we passed the Oxford pickle factory in South Deerfied, with its acrid, vinegary aroma of dill pickle brine).

When Wendy and I split up, she graciously let me keep him. "I wouldn't want to break up you and your 'little buddy,'" she said, and I've always been grateful to her for that.

About ten years ago, he got hit by a car and was sent flying. Miraculously, he survived, with only a gash on his knee and no broken bones. Thank you, God.

When I remarried, and my wife Tonja and I were blessed with our beautiful kids, Jesse moved down the depth chart of my affections, but by then we had developed a sort of telepathic understanding. He was surprisingly good with the children, even if he did steal the food out of their little hands. At least he never bit them.

His cataracts made him mostly, if not completely, blind, and he was largely deaf as well. He was also pretty smelly, funkier than a five dollar whore at quitting time. But it didn't make me love him any less, and he was even more attached to me than ever.

He had been going downhill for a while. He slept more and more, and so hard that Tonja had to check him to make sure he was alive. Earlier this year, he had a mini-stroke, but bounced back with medication. He also developed an egg-sized tumor on his leg, in all likelihood malignant, which no doubt hastened his demise.

But I'll always remember him as he was in his prime, feisty and full of life, my little buddy, my pal time friend.

Sky Saxon (1937-2009)

Sky Saxon, lead singer of L.A.-based '60s garage legends the Seeds, has died in Austin, Texas.

Read the obit by Joe Gross at Austin360.com.

Best known for their 1966 hit "Pushin' Too Hard," the Seeds extrapolated "two great chords" into "five great albums," and also appeared in the 1968 film Psych-Out.

Saxon, born Richard Marsh, also known as Sky Sunlight Saxon and Sun Star, had recently relocated to Austin, where he could double bill with fellow psychedelic pioneer Roky Erickson.

Over at GaragePunk.com, The Mal Thursday Show #16: Riot on Sunset Strip Revisited and Sonic Nightmares #29 feature lengthy tributes to the music of the Seeds, and Sky's recent recording of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Swamp Music" can be heard on Florida Rocks Again! #38: Coverama! 3-D. There's more Seeds madness to be found on The Mal Thursday Show #12: All Kindsa Girls, Pt. 2 and The Mal Thursday Show #7: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

David Carradine (1936-2009)

David Carradine died in an apparent suicide yesterday. I am a fan of his work, particularly his '70s heyday, when he made Bound for Glory, The Long Riders, and Death Race 2000, and starred as Kwai Chang Cain in the TV series "Kung Fu." Having read a couple of his memoirs, Endless Highway and The Kill Bill Diary, I kind of feel like I knew the guy.

I have a particular fondness for his film Americana, a labor of love based on Henry Morton Robinson's novel The Perfect Round, filmed in 1973 and finally completed in 1982. Carradine directed and played the lead, opposite Barbara Hershey, his wife at the time. I later reviewed it for Viewpoints.com, and you can read that review HERE.

In his writings, Carradine came off as a proud man, a seeker, an optimist, and a bit of a horndog. Not the kind of a dude who'd hang himself in a Bangkok hotel room.

He's the only one who knows and he isn't talking.

Happy Birthday, Ollie!

Today is Oliver Reed's birthday. He would have been 71 years old, had he not died ten years ago in that pub in Malta.

One of my pipe dreams is to own a taproom/microbrewery and call it's Ollie's Pub. Given that a good bar is basically recession-proof, maybe that's not such a bad idea...

Cheers, Ollie!