obituaries

i didn't know who he was before this, but former SNL and Kids-In-The-Hall writer joe bodolai took his own life yesterday. the notes he left, leading up to his suicide, are heartbreaking.

Lynn Samuels will probably only mean anything to New Yorkers of a certain age; a call-in mainstay on WBAI and then WABC. Her voice could clean an oven, and I called her a few dozen times from the '80s on WBAL til her WABC stint ended about ten years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/nyregion/lynn-samuels-radio-talk-show-host-dies-at-69.html

(Unmentioned by the Times is that she did sound for awhile at the old Folk City bar in the Village.)

aw

RIP cheetah:

PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) — A Florida animal sanctuary says Cheetah the chimpanzee from the Tarzan movies of the early 1930s has died at age 80.

The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor announced that Cheetah died Dec. 24 of kidney failure.
Sanctuary outreach director Debbie Cobb on Wednesday told The Tampa Tribune (http://bit.ly/rRuTeJ ) that Cheetah was outgoing, loved finger painting and liked to see people laugh. She says he seemed to be tuned into human feelings.

Cheetah was the comic relief in the Tarzan series starring American Olympic gold medal swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. Cobb says Cheetah came to the sanctuary from Weissmuller's estate sometime around 1960.
Cobb says Cheetah wasn't a troublemaker. Still, sanctuary volunteer Ron Priest says that when the chimp didn't like what was going on, he would throw feces.

omg i'm "of a certain age"

I periodically listened to Samuels on satellite radio during the 2008 campaign. Pretty sure it was her--gravelly voice, swore a lot? She was stridently pro-Hillary at the time.

I never heard her Sirius show, but judging by a couple podcast links they've put on her website, yeah, she embraced the lack of censorship:

http://lynnsamuels.com/

She was anathema at both NY stations... called both Bushes fascists or morons on WABC, and said she believed abortion was murder on Pacifica.

She also mailed me her copy of Moby's "Play" bcz she hated it.

Well, that was nice of her.

I really enjoyed Cheetah's "autobiography," Me, Cheetah. RIP.

how well did Tarzan REALLY know the jungle, calling a chimp Cheetah?