Year end Dead pool post

Well the power of my picks is once again demonstrated in this article
Castro recovering, could govern again Sigh........

Well I knew this was going to happen since my track record is pretty good over the last few years. I am sorry that Lair is not going to continue but I want to thank him for all the hard work he has put in over the last few years. it was fun.

I am sorry I could not post more but 2006 has been in hell year for me in health as well as having a record number of different jobs, being unemployed is not fun.

Everyone have a happy new year,

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Close but no Cigar

Update: I guess I should have saved this title for Fidel but since I used it on the Deadpool site already I will have to go with it here.
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Rounding out my list of people who I am keeping alive is the former Prime Minister of Israel.

I have a feeling that if he were in charge things would have gone a lot harder on the Hezbo's then they did under Olmert.

I suspect that even though he is not awake something got through to him to worsen his condition. Probably it was the news of the cease (barf)fire.

Of course such is the magic of my picks the even in this severe case he is now said to be stable

If you don't think that is a feat read this blurb from the above article.

Tel Aviv's Chaim Sheba Medical Center said Monday that new tests had revealed deterioration in Sharon's brain function and infection in both lungs. His urine output had also decreased significantly and doctors were treating him with broad-spectrum antibiotics and steroids, the hospital said at the time.

Chances are these three will all die this year but being that I picked them maybe not.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Fidel coming back

Next on my list of people I am keeping alive though I hate to admit it is Fidel Castro who has handed off power to his brother but is now recovering.

The specifics of Castro's ailment and the nature of the surgery he underwent have been treated as a state secret. The leader blamed his heavy work and travel schedule for causing sustained intestinal bleeding, which prompted the need for emergency surgery.

I really really wish this one would die, sigh.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

President Ford still going

I have often said that being one of my picks is the best health care anyone can get.
To prove my point lets look at some of my picks, very shaky, but still very much with us.

First there is President Gerald Ford getting a pacemaker but still alive at age 93.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Of DVD's and Hotels

Well I guess I blew it.
With everything else going on in my life I never got around to finishing my second qtr posts as I intended.
Oh well I guess from our hosts rant that he finds no posts better
than lame ones so maybe it is not that bad.

One of my picks I did post about was Jerry Lewis.

This came to me last night or early this morning actually as I was watching an DVD I had picked up at Wal Mart for five bucks, of old Martin and Lewis TV shows on the Colgate Comedy hour. I could not find the same one I bought at Wal Mart on Amazon but it is similar to to this one

Not bad at all $5 (or maybe $5.50) you get 8 old TV shows. For the money not bad at all. The show we watched last night had Burt Lancaster as the guest. My daughter was not happy about watching anything in black and white but she sat through it and found it funny,

According to IMDB this was a 1953 episode, the season opener of season 4 or number 122 of 224.

I was telling this to my mom a little while ago and she told me stories about how she and my dad had seen their show (among others) at the Capitol theater before they made it real big. The Capitol was in Times Square at 1645 Broadway and designed by Thomas Lamb had over 5,000 seats and was torn down to build the Paramount Plaza hotel.

They were still living in Brooklyn at that time but like most New Yorkers of the time liked to go up to the Catskills on summer weekends where there were many hotels almost all of which are now closed.

They were up there at the Nevele once and Jerry was a guest. This made for an interesting weekend as you might imagine. She says she has some pictures somewhere of Jerry and my dad playing softball which I will post next quarter if she finds them, big if.

Another interesting fact was that Jerry and the hotel's entertainment director played off against each other the whole time making every meal quite memorable. The entertainment directors name was Buddy Hackett

Cross posted at Dead Pool 2006

Jewish Guilt

One of the reasons I find myself rushing to get all my picks posted before the 30th is because I made a commitment to Lair to do so.
Having made that pledge I have put my self in the crosshairs of something our host and I know about quite well, jewish guilt.

Of course we jews didn't invent guilt it was invented by our mothers to keep us in line.

One of my picks knows all about this too, Joey Bishop.
Not a jewish name you say well how about Joseph Abraham Gottlieb, now what could be more jewish than that.

Joey was born in the Bronx in 1918 which was the same year my dad was born in Brooklyn.

At one point he held the record for most guest hosts for Johnny Carson on the tonight show (it may still be a record, 177) until he decided to take on Carson head to head with his own show on ABC which lasted only 2 years.

Now extra points if you can guess his regular sidekick on the show, which ran from 1967-1969, who is not only still performing but doing better than he has ever done.

Click above to get the answer. Comment if you knew before hand, no cheating now.

Cross posted at Dead Pool 2006

Fidel

Well as long as I am on a roll, I seem to remember a story about Castro brother claiming that Cuba will stay communist after Fidel dies. The poor cubans, I hope that doesn't happen but they do have the power.

Fidel himself seems to think that Zarqawi Killing a 'Barbarity. Well he should know if anyone does.

I think he is just pissed becuase he never had Abu over for lunch.

Cross posted at Dead Pool 2006

Time is not on his Side

While we're at it and since my time is running down to get all my picks blogged what about Sharon.

The former Prime Minister however seems like he i destined to make this the only year I ever had two people die

He has had a bunch of things go wrong and you can read the article for them because I won't go into it since a lot of it reminds me of what happened to my own father.

Cross posted at Dead Pool 2006

Jerry Lewis

My 80 year old pick Jerry Lewis is recovering from a heart attack.

Being so few of my picks have died I am sure he will recover.

Cross posted at Dead Pool 2006

Liz to Reveal all

According to think link Liz Taylor is going to reveal all to Larry King.
Considering what she has to reveal it sounds like a whole week of Larry. I hope he can handle it. If not whoever has him in the pool may do well.

I am not sure Liz can handle it but I think she will defy things again and outlive LArry.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Old Bond Defends New Bond

Roger Moore, who I never liked as James Bond defends the newest James Bond.

Moore played Simon Templar for five years on the TV series The Saint and I thought he was great in that role. Bond IMHO just never fit him.

Really not much else to say about Roger except he is still busy doing movies and voice things.

Cross posted at Dead Pool 2006

As Himself

In 1958 there was a somewhat lame movie about the acceptance of Rock and Roll named Let's Rock. In this this movie there were some wellknown people playing themselves like Paul Anka and Della Reese,Also playing himslef was a somewhat less well known actor named Wink Martindale.

In a career most actors play many characters, Wink had gone through almost his entire career playing himself.

He went through the 60's playing himself or as host of a number of forgetable gameshows like What's This Song and How's Your Mother-in-Law before finally hitting it big in 1972 as the host of Gambit which ran until 1981.

Those were Wink's golden years as he overlapped as the host of The New Tic Tac Dough which ran from 1978 through 85 and the short lived Password Plus.

Towards the end of the 80's he was host of a show called High Rollers which had originally been hosted by Alex Trebek before he moved on the Jeopardy fame.

Cross posted at Dead Pool 2006

Stan Lee

Stan Lee should be one of the richest men in the world.
He will certainly go down as one of the more creative.
The period in the 60's where he created Spiderman, the Fantastic Four and all the rest of the Marvel universe was amazing. The fact that most of his creations from that period are still going dtrong is proof of his genius.

Somehow he managed to lose control of all that and now he is content to do cameos in the movies that have made mega bucks from his characters like Spidey 3.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Does this pick suck?

Kenny Rogers is probably a candidate for my pick sucks which may be why I am the only person who picked him,

A quick look at his website shows that not only is the gambler alive and well but he is booked ahead for concerts all the way through November.

I have nothing bad to say about Kenny or his music.

At this point I can't even figure out why I added him to my list except I needed someone to replace Ted Kennedy once I figured out that being on my list was probaly keeping him alive.

Cross posted at Dead Pool 2006

Gay Cowboy Song

There is a lot to be said about Willie Nelson some good, some bad, some just weird.

This story today speaks for itself.

Willie is one of a kind, if he passes this year there is no one to replace him and maybe that is a good thing.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Dead pool tofer??

I was doing some research today and ran across this article about the death the Sonny King.Now no one picked Sonny King so there are no points in it for anyone, so how then you ask am I asking for a tofer, hang on I am getting to it.

The research I was doing was for my Joey Bishop post. Bishop for you younger types is the last living member of the Rat Pack. The Rat pack was as its time the coolest of the cool in entertainment circles. There were many members and associated members but the core group was Bishop, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford.

Now Sonny King (remember him) had a long career, even though most of you, even I have hardly heard of him. He was Jimmy Durante's long time sidekick and was the featured Lounge act at the sands for over ten years. Frank Sinatra nicknamed him the Lounge Giant.

When the Rat pack played the main room at the Sands thay would party with Sonny afterwards sometimes hanging out with them in the steam room.

Part of the reason they were so chummy were that Sonny and Dean Martin used to room together in New York when both were struggling performers.

Mr. King and Martin were so broke that they frequented a restaurant serving two doughnuts, coffee and orange juice for a nickel -- and shared the meal.

Talk about inflation.

The other significant thing Sonny did was supposedly introduce Dean to Jerry Lewis who is another of my picks (hence my claim of a towfer, what do you think Laurence?)

If you didn't know, when they were a team Martin and Lewis were just about the biggest act in show biz. They drew crowds outside their hotel room in New York that brought traffic to a standstill.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Liz Taylor

Is there anyone out there in the mess we call the movie business today that is as hot as Elizabeth Taylor was in her prime?

The short answer is NO!

From Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to Butterfield 8 (for which she won an Oscar to Cleopatra, heck as far back as the child star in National Velvet there is no one I can think of whose career can compare to hers.

Now after husbands too numerous to count(ok I didn't run out of fingers I just lost count) she is pretty much just known as a friend of Michael Jackson's. I really would have wished her a better end.

Actually I am overlooking the fact that she has been very active in raising money for Aids research which is a very good thing. Of course if might have some relationship to her friendship with Michael but we may never know.

Cross posted at Dead Pool 2006

Ariel Sharon

As further proof of the magic of being on my dead pool list I offer Ariel Sharon who despite some nasty stuff is still going.

It appears that he is in a vegetative state which means he could outlive most of us. I thought he would be my first score of 2006 but I should have known better.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Diana Ross

Diana Ross as some of you may recall was originally part of a group called the Supremes.
The Supremes were one of the blockbuster Motown groups of the 60's.
Eventually Diana became too big and the group became Diana Ross and The Supremes. Then she became even bigger and dropped the other two girls altogether.
I am betting that this year will be Diana's last.

There are still groups who call themselves the Supremes even though they have none of the original members.

One of those original members, Mary Wilson, is fighting them though the courts and with the lawmakers as detailed in this article.

I am all in favor of this. Diana however doe not seem to be part of this.
Diana's career seems to be pretty much in the toilet as she has not done much of anything since 1999 or if you feel like I do has not done anything much since Lady sings the Blues in 1972. In that movie she played Billie Holiday. Billie died young and at 62 Diana is proving a bit stronger but I think this may be her year.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Saddam Hussein

As some of you know my picks in the dead pool over the last few years are almost all still with us.

This year I tired a difference tack and took off those I really wanted to die so that they would not have the protection of my picks anymore.

An exception was Saddam Hussein who I thought was pretty much a shoe in, Well judging from this story and the general problems at his trial it looks like my magic may still be working and I will have to pick him again in 2007.

Cross posted at Deadpool 2006.

Gerald Ford

As part of the 2006 dead pool we must all post about our picks so I will be posting mine here also to bolster my awful posts per week ave.

If Lair expects us to post on every pick every quarter I better get started.

Unlike the poster below I do not think Garald Ford will make it to December and for pretty much the same reason.

Sure he would like to beat Reagan at something but he won't because he is purely an also ran.

Cross Posted at: 2006 dead pool

Enter before it is too Late

You are runing out of time to enter the 2006 Dead Pool.

# 2006 Dead Pool Rules are posted and the signup form is linked at the bottom of the rules page. You have until the ball drops in Times Square to sign up.

the rules can be found here.

Saddam a no show

One of the interesting things about the 2006 Dead Pool is that we have to blog about our picks once a quarter. Of my picks Saddam is going to be the easist to talk about at least as long as he is still breathing.

When I read about stuff like this I wonder why they don't just drag him into court, tie him down and stick a gag in his mouth.

They cannot take this guy out and hang him soon enough, after the first of the year, to make me happy. I am not saying that just because we get a bonus for the first death but I think the world will be a much better place when he and those like him are not on it.

You still have until the ball drops on 12/31 to register in the dead pool.

2006 Dead Pool

It is that time of year again to get your entries in for the isfullofcrap (formerly file13) deal pool.

The rules are here, hurry and enter because you only have until the ball drops.

My own picks have been followed closely because in 3 years only 2 people I picked died. Which means choose anybody that I don't.