Goodnight Sweet Prince

Good Night Sweet Prince: Beastie Boys’ Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch. (1964 – 2012)

Looks like God wanted to hear No Sleep till Brooklyn live.

It’s being reported by TMZ that Beastie Boy Adam Yauch has passed away.

In 2009, MCA announced he was being treated for a cancerous parotid gland and a lymph node. He has since undergone surgery and radiation therapy.

Russell Simmons’ website GlobalGrind.com first reported the death. We have spoken to people independently connected to the rapper who also say he is dead.

MCA co-founded Beastie Boys in 1979 with Mike D, and Ad Rock. The group has won multiple Grammys and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.

The Rapper, Director, and practicing Buddhist leaves a legacy that crosses musical genres.

It’s a sad day for hip-hop, music in general, and my generation as a whole.

We’re suggesting that you listen to “I don’t know”, one of Yauch’s more personal songs, in tribue, right now:

Who does know
There is no
Where to go
It’s not so simple as I try to wish
But then again what is?
There is no other worthy quest
So on I go

Now some more Beasties classics:

And of course No Sleep till Brooklyn:

Good Night Sweet Prince: Dick Clark (1929 – 2012)

‘America’s Oldest Teenager’ is with us no more. Dick Clark has passed away this day at the age of 82.

Clark is best remembered by everyone as the host of ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’ where he counted down the New Year year after year after year. But did you know that he also hosted ‘American Bandstand’ from 1956 until 1989? Whhhhhat! That’s way too long for a show to be on the air.

God help us if Ryan Seacrest takes over New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. He can’t compare to the legend that was Dick Clark.

Good Night Sweet Prince: Robert Sherman (1925-2012)

I bet a lot of you read that title and thought.. “Who?”

It’s okay, up until I watched the excellent documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story, I didn’t know either.

If you had a childhood, regardless of what decade it happened, you’ve heard the songs of Robert Sherman. He’s one of those people whose legacy will live on, long after he passed. Yesterday, at the age of 86, Sherman passed:

The Shermans were Walt Disney’s songwriters of choice, their music for “Mary Poppins” including the jaunty “A Spoonful of Sugar” and the somber “Feed the Birds.” For Disneyland attractions, the brothers wrote such instantly familiar tunes as “It’s a Small World” and “The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room.”

“My brother Bob was a poetic soul with limitless imagination and talent,” Richard Sherman said in a statement. “He was my loyal friend all through the years.”

“A piece of our childhood has been taken away,” film music historian Jon Burlingame said. “They wrote some of the most resonant songs of our childhood, and that doesn’t apply only to those of us who grew up in the 1960s but also to those born ever since.

To put Sherman’s career into perspective, he retired from music with 23 Gold and Platinum Albums, two less than The Beatles. (and 10 of theirs were compilations and live releases)

Anyway, there’s no better way of honoring this legend on DAPS than getting one of his most recognizable works stuck in your head for the rest of the day

‘Band of Brothers’ Veteran Lynn ‘Buck’ Compton Dies at 90.

While I haven’t drank the Tom Brokaw Kool-aid 100%, and don’t believe every member of the World War II Generation is truly the “Greatest Generation”, I do believe Buck Compton does fit that moniker.

Neal McDonough (the actor that portrayed Buck in Band of Brothers) with Buck Compton.

I know I’m late to the party with this news, but Compton passed away on February 25, 2012. The reason I’m talking about this is because I believe Compton embodied the central lesson that all veterans, of every war ever fought, earn.

They earn the right, after witnessing and experiencing all the death and destruction that war produces, to go back into civilian life and live long and peaceful lives. This is best exemplified in the speech that is given by a German General to his men after surrendering to the Americans.

The German Gerneral ends his speech with “You all deserve long and happy lives in peace.” This was the unspoken deal/social contract for our grandfathers who fought in World War II. They were sent to Europe and the Pacific to literally give their lives defending their country. And if they managed to survive that horrific ordeal they were rewarded with a College Education and a chance to live out the rest of their lives in relative peace.

Here’s the speech:

Chills? If you’re interested in learning about the bonds men form under combat I suggest you check out Band of Brothers in History and Literature. It’s a choice read.

Here’s Neal McDonough from Band of Brothers talking about Buck Compton’s legacy

Good Night Sweet Prince: Don Cornelius

Today is a sad day for fans of Soul Train, or that one episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air where Uncle Phil and Aunt Viv rekindle their love. Creator of Soul Train, Don Cornelius was found dead this morning, in his home, from a self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head.

Cornelius was 75 years old and was suffering through a very messy divorce as well as several health issues (one of which requiring brain surgery).

We here at the DAPS office are deeply saddened by this news and have scheduled a final Soul Train line for 4:30 pm in honor of the deceased host. We’ll be wearing period appropriate clothing from our favorite era of Soul Train, the early 90′s.

Goodnight Sweet Price: Patrice O’Neal (1969 – 2011)

Ah shit, say it ain’t so comedy world. Funny man Patrice O’Neal bit the dust earlier today. The stroke he suffered back in October has finally caught up with him. He was only 41! Damn.

Patrice O’Neal, a fixture in the New York comedy scene for two decades who was most recently seen in the Comedy Central Roast Of Charlie Sheen, has passed away according to sources close to the comedian.

You’ve seen Patrice O’Neal crack jokes on various television shows and movies, but did you know he also had a brief stint as a writer for the WWE? The man worked his diabetic ass off. To celebrate his memory, check out O’Neal’s Comedy Central stand-up special “Elephant In The Room” below. On a personal note, I love Black comedians who talk shit about White people. And my boy Patrice excelled at that. RIP!

Good Night Sweet Prince: Heavy D (1967 – 2011)

I’m not the biggest hip-hop fan, but the incredible amount of coverage (and the fact that I recognized his name) led me to believe that Heavy D deserved the Good Night Sweet Prince treatment on DAPS.

Becuase I don’t know that much about the man I’m going to let Rolling Stone’s words speak for me.

Heavy D, the former leader of the hip-hop group Heavy D and the Boyz, has died at the age of 44. The rapper was rushed to a hospital in Los Angeles earlier this afternoon and was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. PT. Police are investigating his death but there are no signs of foul play.

I do remember “Now that we found love” because who doesn’t remember that track. It’s a good one.

Good Night Sweet Prince: Steve Jobs – Tributes From Every Corner of the Web

Last night Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple and apparent Christ-incarnate died after a battle of Pancreatic Cancer (PC killed Jobs?). Almost immediately (as if they were already made in some morbid pre-death grieving ritual) thousands of tributes to the man were unleashed upon the web for us to be hit over the head with time and time again from now to the inevitable Wall-E depicted end-of-days.

While my opinion of the man is that he was a marketing genius (and that’s it), I have no emotional attachment to the man, which gives me a unique perspective on some of the tributes I’ve been seeing. Let’s take a look as some of the better/more interesting ones.

Keep reading →

Good Night Sweet Prince: Amy Winehouse (1983-2011)


It’s being reported that singer/hot mess Amy Winehouse has been found dead in her London flat. TMZ and Daily Mail are reporting.

Last month, the north Londoner pulled out of her European tour after she was jeered at her comeback gig in Serbia for appearing too drunk to perform.

For 90 minutes, she mumbled through parts of songs and at times left the stage – leaving her band to fill in.

The troubled singer had a long battle with drink and drugs which overshadowed her musical career in recent years.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed that a 27-year-old woman had died in Camden and that the cause of death was as yet unexplained.

London Ambulance Service had been called to the flat at 1554 BST and sent two ambulances but the woman died, it said. (Via BBC News)

Tumblr’s Topherchris broke the news in a way most of us could relate to:


In all honesty, Rehab was really catchy. Let’s play it one time in Amy’s honor:

On a personal note, it was kind of hard to write 1983-2011… That’s how old most of us DAPS guys are.

::exhales::

Sup, Mortality.

Good Night Sweet Prince: Peter Falk (1927 – 2011)

Falk — who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease — was 83.
A rep for the family tells TMZ, “Peter Falk, 83-year-old Academy Award nominee and star of television series, ‘Columbo’, died peacefully at his Beverly Hills home in the evening of June 23, 2011.”

In honor of Columbo’s passing here’s a remix of his famous catch phrase “Just One More Thing“:

I guess God needed a detective who always asked “Just One More Thing”.

 
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