Sgt. First Class Michael “Ty” Kettenhofen (US Army).
Sgt. Kettenhofen was a member of the Golden Knights parachute team. He was training at Homestead Air Reserve Base on Monday when he was badly injured in a landing, and died in a hospital after surgery.
Statement from the US Army. This happened on Monday, but I did not see it widely reported until yesterday.
The only thing I really knew him from was “The Wire” (and a blink-and-you’ll miss it role in “Godzilla vs. Kong”), but he was a lot more diverse than that.
60 doesn’t seem that old these days, does it?
Jerry Samuels, also known as “Napoleon XIV” of “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” fame.
In an interview quoted on Wayne Jancik’s website about one-hit wonders, Mr. Samuels said that nine years before recording “They’re Coming to Take Me Away,” he spent eight months in a psychiatric hospital.
“When I did the record, I knew it wouldn’t offend mental patients,” he said. “I would have laughed at it if I had heard it when I was in the hospital.”
From Wikipedia:
Continuing the theme of insanity, the flip or B-side of the single was simply the A-side played in reverse, and given the title “!aaaH-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er’yehT” (or “Ha-Haaa! Away, Me Take to Coming They’re”) and the performer billed as “XIV NAPOLEON”…
In his Book of Rock Lists, rock music critic Dave Marsh calls the B-side the “most obnoxious song ever to appear in a jukebox”, saying the recording once “cleared out a diner of forty patrons in two minutes flat.”
Given that the song played forward is 2:10 long, and I assume played backward is the same length, I’m not sure that statement implies what Mr. Marsh thinks it implies…
I also want to point out that among the “many covers” of the song is one by LARD (a Jello Biafra side project)…that’s over eight minutes long. You can find it on the ‘Tube, if you’re interested.
Jim Mellen, one of the original Weathermen. Apparently, he left the group before they rebranded as the Weather Underground and started blowing things up (including themselves).