Three for the reaper

Death has been busy lately.

First, there was the tragic suicide of country singer Mindy McCready, who took her own life last week, ending a struggle with substance abuse. If you believe the tabloids, Mindy might be better known for an alleged underage relationship with baseball pitcher Roger Clemens than for her music.

Let's serve up McCready's 1996 hit, "Ten Thousand Angels":



Concert pianist Van Cliburn is associated with classical music, and there is an annual competition that bears his name. Cliburn passed away on Wednesday at 78. Mainlymuzik uploaded this performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1, recorded in Moscow in 1962:



Finally, there is actor Dale Robertson, who also passed away on Wednesday, at 89. Robertson is known for his work in Westerns, particularly a stint as host of the syndicated anthology series, Death Valley Days, which he took over after his ABC series, Iron Horse, ended in 1968. Jpwrites uploaded the open to season 2 of Horse:



Rest in peace.

They may start dancing on Burdett Avenue.........

I was rummaging through my cabinets in my bedroom yesterday after work, and, then, I found what I was looking for. Still in mint condition, save for maybe some rust stains on the back, was a button I had bought during my senior year at Troy High in support of the boys' basketball team. That year, they were eliminated by Shaker High, led by future college & NBA star Sam Perkins. That year, the Flying Horses, a .500 team in the Big 10, were a decided underdog. Not this time.

Tonight, the two schools meet again, this time in the Class AA semi-finals at Times Union Center in Albany, with the winner advancing to the title game on Monday. By the time they tip off, sometime after 8 (ET), they'll know who'll be waiting for them in the title game, be it defending champion Christian Brothers Academy or upstart Green Tech, in their 3rd varsity season, playing an independent schedule, but assigned as the 3rd seed on the Big 10 side of the bracket. Green Tech reached this point by beating the once mighty Shenendehowa, whom Shaker swept during the regular season. For CBA, this would be business as usual, which brings a yawn from this desk.

 

Troy finished the tournament last year without Javion Oguymeni, who was injured, but he's back and healthy this time, reminding his team that they have some unfinished business. However, it's Shaker who's looking for revenge this time, as Troy eliminated the Blue Bison in the semifinals last year before getting bamboozled by CBA in the title game. No one brings up the storied history between Troy & Shaker from more than 30 years ago, once again a case of the media ignoring a potential storyline. When the brackets came out two weeks ago, I felt that, despite bleeding Troy purple & gold, I didn't see Troy reaching the title game again. Shaker is their biggest obstacle. Having seen the Blue Bison beat Shen on TV last month, I'm convinced they may pose a bigger threat should CBA also advance.

Meanwhile, on the girls' side, it has been 24 years since the Troy women won a Section II title. On Saturday, they play the Academy of Holy Names in the Class A title game at Hudson Valley Community College. The odd thing is, Holy Names is the #1 ranked team in the state, but were not the top seed in Class A. Troy somehow landed that plum position, despite finishing second in the Big 10 to Albany, which will play for the AA title on Monday as the opening act to the Boys' AA final. Rightfully, Holy Names should be the top seed, but get treated like Rodney Dangerfield instead, and will seek to earn the respect of Section II's power brokers by beating Troy.

Just think of the possibilities, come Tuesday morning. Should both Troy teams win, and in the boys' case, it would be the equivalent to Mission: Impossible, you can bet they will have one phat party atmosphere on the Burdett Avenue campus, and both teams would likely be invited to participate in the Flag Day Parade on June 9, as the football team has done several times in the past, a fitting coda for the seniors.

Maybe this will teach Section II to leave the politics out of high school hoops once and for all, but then again.........

Musical Interlude: Give Me The Night (1980)

George Benson may be better known for his jazzed up cover of the Drifters' "On Broadway", but he caught my attention, and most of you, too, in the summer of 1980 with the funky, breezy "Give Me The Night". Oh, yeah, the track was produced by Quincy Jones, who'd helmed Michael Jackson's hit album, "Off The Wall", months earlier.

Classic TV: Bonanza (1959)

A good number of Westerns were centered on families. Perhaps the most famous of this sub-genre was Bonanza, which was to NBC what Gunsmoke was to CBS, its most successful Western. Bonanza lasted 14 seasons, the last ending a wee bit early when it was cancelled in January 1973.

Bonanza was built around widower Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene) and his three sons, Eric, aka Hoss (Dan Blocker), "Little" Joe (Michael Landon), and Adam (Pernell Roberts). Ben was married at least three times, and each time, the marriage ended in tragedy, which might explain why it was so rare to find a woman on the Ponderosa. Roberts left the show after a few years, so Adam Cartwright was written out, and a ranch hand, Candy (David Canary) became the fourth star. Canary was last seen on All My Children, and thus is the last surviving member of the cast, while all four of the Cartwrights have passed on.

Bonanza provided a mix of drama, adventure, and some lightweight comedy, usually in the misadventures of Hoss & Little Joe. In this case, however, it's a piece of history. Howard Duff guest stars as Samuel Clemens in the Season 1 episode, "Enter Mark Twain".

Today, Bonanza's cable rights are shared among TV Land, Me-TV, & INSP, so there's no way you can miss the show.

Rating: A.

Musical Interlude: The Only Flame in Town (1984)

Now, who'dathunk this pairing would've worked out so well?

Elvis Costello was one of the "Angry Young Men" who came out of England in the late 70's & early 80's (along with Graham Parker & Joe Jackson) during the dawn of the New Wave movement. However, by 1984, that anger had given way to the temptations of pop stardom, as demonstrated in a duet with Daryl Hall, who was making his first record without regular partner John Oates, and would record a solo record for Costello's label, Epic, not long after the release of "The Only Flame in Town".

These days, the ideal duet partner for Elvis would be his wife, singer-songwriter Diana Krall, who's definitely Elvis' "only flame"......!

On The Shelf: Of Banshees, Shadows, and dead birds

Idea & Design Works (IDW) has acquired a license to adapt Cinemax's new series, Banshee, into a comic book, with a free preview in stores now. Decent stuff, especially if you're into crime drama loaded with F-bombs in the dialogue, as will be the case on TV. However, it's not something I would invest in long-term. Rating: C.

All we have ever known about The Shadow's origins, ever since his radio days, was that he honed his hypnotic powers and other skills in the Orient. We don't really know what his motivation was. Veteran writer Matt Wagner intends to change all that with a new miniseries from Dynamite, The Shadow: Year One. Wagner isn't drawing it, just writing, and, as with the monthly Shadow series, there are variant covers for each issue, including by the inestimable Alex Ross. If you're a true Shadow fan, you need to have this. Rating: A.

What made headlines today, however, was news of another comics character being killed off, and in this case, it may not be a case where the character could return at a later date.

DC Comics took their turn in leaking the news that the current Robin in the Batman line of books, Damian Wayne, the illegitimate offspring of Bruce (Batman) Wayne and Talia, is being whacked in the latest issue of Batman Incorporated (volume 2), out Wednesday. Writer Grant Morrison created Damian a few years ago, and has nurtured the character, molding him from a rebellious youth into a true hero. Damian was one of the few characters who remained unchanged after the start of the New 52 initiative nearly 18 months ago, and now it seems his passing is part of Morrison's exit strategy as he leaves DC at the end of his current deal. Morrison might not be too comfortable with other writers handling the youth after his departure, and that means other Bat-writers, including Scott Snyder, will be tasked to create a new Robin. That will be worth watching, but let's remember, too, that Damian has the blood of R'as Al Ghul. That means that if he does return, it'll be after a bath in the Lazarus Pit, which has revived his grandfather and mother in the past. I'd not be surprised if that does happen. I'd not be surprised, either, if another writer decides to erase Damian from the canon down the road............

What Might've Been: The Flash (1990)

If you take a look back at the track record of DC Comics' properties adapted for primetime television, you'd find that the recently concluded Smallville is the most successful series to date, having logged 10 seasons on the air. In fact, the top three DC live-action series are all tied to Superman.

In 1990, producers Danny Bilson & Paul DeMeo picked up an option to adapt The Flash into a weekly series that aired on CBS. That was the good news. The bad? It aired on Thursdays, opposite NBC's top-rated The Cosby Show. CBS, you see, was trying to find a tentpole on Thursdays to replace Magnum, P. I., but Flash wasn't it. Not by a long shot.

Soap star John Wesley Shipp, already known to CBS audiences from The Young & The Restless, was cast as police scientist Barry Allen. Instead of bleaching his hair blond to match Allen's look in the comics, Shipp was allowed to retain his dark hair. Creative license? I suppose, but I believe Shipp was also still on Restless at the time, which would explain his reluctance to change his hair color. Amanda Pays (ex-Max Headroom) played Tina McGee, who was actually a supporting character in the comics at the time, but the anomaly was that Allen's nephew, Wally West, was the comic book Flash at the time, and Tina was having an affair with him, if memory serves me correctly.

Comics veteran Howard Chaykin and relative newcomer John Francis Moore were the principal writers for the show, with cartoon veteran Michael Reaves, who had previous written for Super Friends & He-Man & the Masters of the Universe, among his myriad of toon credits, writing the teleplay for the episode, "Shroud of Death".

Edit: 4/7/14: "Shroud of Death" has been deleted by YouTube due to copyright issues. In its place, we serve up the open. If the music sounds familiar, well, I think Danny Elfman was the show's musical director........



Co-star Alex Desert would return a few years later in the sitcom, Becker, opposite Ted Danson, and that lasted at least two seasons, as opposed to Flash checking out after 1. Unlike Warner Bros.' last adaptation for TV, Wonder Woman, we would get to see at least a couple of the Scarlet Speedster's enemies, including The Trickster and Captain Cold. Not that it helped, as a better time slot would've done that.

Rating: B-.