Life in the Garden

Matters of Life and Death

Television

Teddy Badley- That Cat Played a Bad Tamborine

CBS newsman Ed Bradley was a big fan of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, KATC-TV reports. On Friday, the Jazz Fest honored his memory and his two decades of support with an opening day jazz funeral procession, complete with two brass bands. Bradley, who died in November, had wanted to be remembered at the festival with a “second line” parade, so called because watchers often fall in to form a second line of paraders. “He put it in his will. He wanted a second line and a New Orleans brass band and Quint Davis to put it all together,” said his widow, Patricia Blanchet.

Davis, the festival producer, unveiled two portraits of Bradley painted on large pieces of wood _ one a larger-than-life picture of his face, the other showing Bradley in a golf cart that he used to drive to get from stage to stage at the festival. The portraits will be part of the festival’s annual “ancestors” exhibit, likenesses of people important to the festival and it’s musical legacy. His voice breaking, an emotional Davis said: “We are happy to be sad and say, `You will always be here at Jazz Fest.'”

Davis introduced singer Jimmy Buffett as the person who first brought Bradley to the festival in the 1980s, and the first to pull him up on stage and hand him a tambourine. “Bless you Father for bringing us a really bad tambourine player but a great friend,” Buffett said Friday. Buffett took credit for giving Bradley the nickname “Teddy Badly.”

About 45 of Bradley’s friends participating in the parade wore small green pins with the name “Teddy” printed on them.

Bradley’s admirers began posting suggestions that he be honored with a jazz funeral on the festival Web site’s message boards soon after his death. Someone signing in as “chicagomike” wrote, “I make a motion to request a Ed Bradley Funeral Parade at the 2007 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Other fans followed up with stories of meeting Bradley at music clubs around New Orleans and of seeing him on stage at the Jazz Fest. “Breambob” wrote of admiring Bradley’s bravery reporting from Vietnam in the ’70s, and telling him so when Bradley stepped up next to him at a New Orleans bar in the early ’90s. “I offered to buy him a drink and told him that story. He insisted on buying me one. Kind, generous, wise and extremely talented. And he truly loved New Orleans,” Breambob wrote.

In a CBS interview the day after Bradley’s death, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis told Steve Kroft of 60 minutes that Bradley loved sharing a stage with musicians. “He would be up on the stage, you know; he wanted to be playing with cats. So he’d get him a tambourine,” Marsalis told Kroft.

As Seen on TV

Greetings!

Three beautiful things:

Sunshine
Realizing you’re not as crazy as you thought
Inspiration

Lileks had a good Monday post, (see #2 TBT) mundane subjects like an adventure to the outdoor living store and highway driving. I quote:

“On the way out I saw a Summer Grilling section, with America-flag themed merchandise, and I had instant summer’s end panic. It’s the Fourth soon! Which means it’ll be over! And then it’s fall! And then it’s Winter! Repeat at an ever-hastening pace until dead!”

And I realized……I do that. Get on a loop and start to get a little anxious….about the clock. Settle down.

Urn Media Watch: Spotted on Soprano’s Sunday Night.

At Phil Leotardo’s social club, Phil hosts a celebration of what would have been his brother Billy’s 47th birthday. He places the urn holding Billy’s ashes back up above the bar – so he’ll be able to see his friends when they visit. Working himself up over the story of how his family’s name was changed from Leonardo to Leotardo (“a ballet costume”), Phil tells Butchie he’s had enough. He shouldn’t have stayed quiet in jail and he should have avenged Billy’s murder. “No more Butchie. No more of this,” he vows.

We carry this style, maybe we’ll rename: “The Leotardo”.

No.

Have a great week, might be a good night for baseball!

Own It!

Greetings!

Three Beautiful Things:

Fresh fruit salad
Naps
Knowing someone still loves you in your most unattractive moment

While wandering around the internets we stumbled onto this amusing post, I tuned in because the author had ripped a couple of my pix and referred to some of my product.

Jetpacks pointed out the Trimspa is still pimping Anna Nicole’s image. Howard K. Stern is probably licensing a deal for the Anna Nicole Smith Halloween costume. How many dead sexy Annas’ will we see later this fall?

Everything is for sale, and if you haven’t seen Mike Judge’s Idiocracy, check it out on DVD. Thanks again to JP for tipping us off. “Don’t expect too much, as it is a satire about a dumbed-down nation, but the many (and brilliant) stabs at corporations were severe enough to cause this movie to have to go underground.

No studio backing for its release. No marketing push. Left to flounder in limited runs in 16 cities, in some cases being billed as “Untitled Comedy by Mike Judge.” Then dumped on the DVD market with no publicity, hopefully to die a quiet death. That’s what happens when you bite the hands of Starbucks, Costco, Carls’ Jr., FedEx, American Express, Fox News and more. People wear disposable logo shirts in the year 2505 and anyone who reads is “a fag.”

Branding has been on our mind lately, I’ve noticed that the rock stars of the yoga world have branded their own styles of the ancient practice, including BREATHING. On the flip side of breathing, the McDeath of the funeral world has been in litigation over the attempt to trademark “Family Funeral Care”. Independents have been fighting hard to shut it down, funeral directors love the word “Dignity” and SCI already owns that.

AS SEEN ON TV: Our intern spotted some of our wares that we sold to MTV as props for one of their sick puppet shows.
Today’s Tip for Better Living: Take the last train to Clarksville.

Great Moments in Television

Greetings!

A moment of silence for the passing of a great mind…

Inventor of the TV remote dies

By SHANNON DININNY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

BOISE, Idaho — Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote has died.

Robert Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made couch potatoship possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday.

In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded Adler and co-inventor Polley, another Zenith engineer, an Emmy in 1997 for the landmark invention.

Adler joined Zenith’s research division in 1941 after earning a doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna. He retired as research vice president in 1979, and served as a technical consultant until 1999, when Zenith merged with LG Electronics Inc.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch screen technology, on Feb. 1.

Adler is survived by his wife, Ingrid.

Then, a bit of weird news:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Police called to a Long Island man’s house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set. The 70-year-old Hampton Bays, New York, resident, identified as Vincenzo Ricardo, appeared to have died of natural causes. Police said on Saturday his body was discovered on Thursday when they were called to the house over a burst water pipe.

“You could see his face. He still had hair on his head,” Newsday quoted morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus as saying. The home’s low humidity had preserved the body.

Officials could not explain why the electricity had not been turned off, considering Ricardo had not been heard from since December 2005. Neighbors said when they had not seen Ricardo, who was diabetic and had been blind for years, they assumed he was in the hospital or a long-term care facility.

Todays Tip for better living: Laugh so hard you wet your pants!