Today is a very sad day in that Beastie Boy Adam Yauch has died. He was a terrific musician and filmmaker and a warm, funny person who a lot of people loved. I got to know him a little bit in the '90s because my roommate from college helped him run his Tibetan-Freedom organization, The Milarepa Fund. The way that he handled the news of his cancer diagnosis three years ago impressed me as amazingly graceful. Which was not a surprise—the way he handled it, I mean. He had always handled maturing, and changing, in the public eye more gracefully than many other examples we've seen.

I was born in Houston, Texas. By the time I was three years old, I was living in New Jersey for the long haul. My family has no true roots in Texas, so leaving it was not a major upheaval. My father always said that Texas was the best place he ever lived. Maybe it was the best place I never really lived. This weekend, the story of the best place that none of us have ever lived—Dillon, Texas—comes to a close. After five seasons, "Friday Night Lights" finishes up, sending those ochre-tinged Texan spaces that have come to feel like home into cold blue digital storage.

"Friday Night Lights" [...]

Sad news for hip-hop last night, as word spread that the groundbreaking graffiti artist and MC Rammellzee had died of as-yet-unknown causes. Born in Far Rockaway, Queens, a fixture of the fertile downtown New York scene of early 1980s, the mysterious figure known as Rammellzee is probably most famous for appearing in three films: Henry Chalfant's Style Wars, Charlie Ahearn's Wild Style (that's him rapping in Wild Style in the clip above) and, playing the role of "man with money," Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise. And for "Beat Bop," a song he made with his Bronx cohort K-Rob that was produced by Jean-Michel Basquiat

"Dad, your cars stink," said one of Ford engineer Donald Frey's kids over the dinner table. "There's no pizzazz." Frey remedied the situation by creating the Mustang, which Ford introduced in the mid-'60s, and which soon became one of the most successful models in American automotive history. "It was designed to appeal to both men and women, had a dash of elegance copied from European sports cars, and featured a galloping steed in the middle of its grille that buyers thought was, well, really cool." Wilson Picket and Steve McQueen helped, too. Frey was still in possession of an original Mustang when he died of a stroke on [...]

Let's pour one out for comical alcoholic Ed McMahon, who has passed away at the age of 86. Or, as People puts it:

He was TV's most famous second banana, sitting alongside Johnny Carson during what was arguably the golden age of NBC's Tonight Show, from 1962 to 1992, welcoming a nightly national audience with his opening cry of "Heeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny."

But now that voice is stilled.

Indeed. Actually, let's pour a couple out. It's Ed, after all.

TMZ is exclusively reporting that actor Dom DeLuise has passed away. The site lists his popular credits as Spaceballs and The Cannonball Run, which is just a terrible way for anyone to be remembered. I prefer to recall his hysterical work in Mel Brooks' The Twelve Chairs, his memorable stint as a Ziploc bag pitchman, and his brief role in Blazing Saddles, above.

Further thoughts on the demise of Portfolio: It was almost exactly two years ago that the first issue hit newsstands; I wrote about 3,000 words mostly reviewing the ads. At the time I suggested that, given the resources behind it, the magazine would probably last at least two years. I claim no prescience in this regard; pretty much everyone knew that Conde Nast was going to pump enough money into it to make sure it wasn't a colossal failure. And also, there were the pillows!

What's your favorite Monkees song? I think mine's "Valleri." Davy Jones died of a heart attack this morning in Florida. He was 66.

Don Tyson, the Arkansas businessman who turned his family's chicken farm into a fortune 500 company, Tyson Foods, has died of cancer. He helped develop Chicken McNuggets for McDonald's and KFC’s Rotisserie Gold. As Little Rock financial analyst Mark A. Plummer told The New York Times in 1994, “It was pretty much Don’s vision that fueled the company. He saw that if you added more convenience by further processing the chicken, consumers would pay for it.”

Sad day in funk yesterday: Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Garry Shider, a longtime lieutenant in George Clinton's Parliament/Funkadelic empire, died of cancer at the age of 56. Born and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey, Shider joined Clinton's outfit for 1972's Maggot Brain album, and went on to co-write and perform on classic material like "Can You Get to That?," "One Nation Under a Groove" and "Atomic Dog"-during the recording of which, he held a particularly intoxicated Clinton up in front of the microphone while he sang. Shider was famous for wearing nothing but a diaper on stage. Doesn't get much funkier than that.

Well, it seems like spring is actually coming. So that is good. But the news that Mark Linkous killed himself Saturday is terrible. If you've are familiar with his story (short version: he was depressed) and have listened to his music, which he recorded under the name Sparklehorse, this is perhaps not entirely surprising. He almost died from an overdose of Valium and antidepressants in 1996, and here is a video for a song called "Saint Mary" he released three years later that has the same world weariness you hear in the music of Elliott Smith. But the news arrives and reminds you of the commonplace, everyday sadness [...]

"'Wotcha, mates!' he growled in a very unladylike voice as he took to the stage." Danny La Rue, 1927-2009.

I love it when gays go crazy. And now they have, over not enough attention to the passing of Bea Arthur.

The Awl extends its condolences to the family and friends of actress Bea Arthur, who passed away this weekend at the age of 86. We also offer our sympathies to comedian Jeffrey Ross, who will now have to find another husky-voiced woman with whose dick he would not fuck people.

"At a trade show in Chicago 1948, Mr. Kordek introduced Triple Action, a game that featured just two flippers, both controlled by buttons at the bottom of the table. Mr. Kordek was a designer for Genco, one of more than two dozen pinball manufacturers in Chicago at the time. Not only was Mr. Kordek’s two-flipper game less expensive to produce; it also gave players greater control. For someone concentrating on keeping a chrome-plated ball from dropping into the “drain,” two flippers, one for each hand, were better than six." —Steve Kordek, who invented the modern pinball machine, died Sunday in Park Ridge, Illinois. It's a nice touch that he [...]